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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26960440">Leave It To The Davenports</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dandybear/pseuds/Dandybear'>Dandybear</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Lovecraft Country (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Blood Kink, Canon Non-Binary Character, Dark fic, F/F, F/M, Genderplay, Hand &amp; Finger Kink, Let's Talk About Race, Light BDSM, Lots of Sex, M/M, Married with children AU, Mild Gore, Murder Wives, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Racism, Praise Kink, The Devil is a White Feminist, We Stan Chaotic Neutral Lesbians, genderfucking</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 19:34:06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>70,450</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26960440</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dandybear/pseuds/Dandybear</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“You’re here for the devil story,” she says, just from looking at me again.<br/>“How could you tell?”<br/>“Everyone wants to know the devil story.”</p><p>--</p><p>Ruby and Christina navigate being a queer interracial couple of cthuonic demigods living through American history.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ruby Baptiste/Christina Braithwhite</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>206</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>469</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. 1965 Part 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This pairing and their dynamic have been living in my head rent free for weeks. I love the layers of complexity, and the fact that no horrible is "too horrible" as of yet. I wanted to get this out (checks time) at least an hour before episode 9 so I'm ready to put on my clown wig if this all goes south.</p><p>SO THIS IS A WHAT-IF FIC.</p><p>There's talk about race here, and like in the show, it's not always comfortable, and it's not always agreeable. I'm open to hearing if I fucked up. I'm going from my own experience of being a white person in a mixed-race family.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Rolling Stone. Fall Issue. 2000</b>
</p><p>
  <span>With a career like Ruby Baptiste’s you expect some touch of magic. The woman’s been around since the time of legends like Little Richard and Fats Domino. She’s a rock pioneer, motown queen, and certified diva. Every Ruby Baptiste album is a time capsule of the decade. The albums that informed not just my childhood, but the childhoods of many Americans like me.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Meeting her in person is like getting coffee with a piece of history and a beloved family member all rolled into one. For a woman in her seventies, she doesn’t look a day over forty.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I moisturize,” she says with a laugh when pressed about it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>We talk about the weather--still sweltering hot at this time of year, which I complain about. She correctly guesses that I’m, “Not from Chicago.” Got me there. I admit, sheepishly, to being a Seattle native which launches her into a story about a show she did in Seattle back in ‘72. I know the one. I’ve been to that bar, seen her picture splashed on the wall in living color. Larger than life, Ms. Baptiste with teased out afro that always made me feel just a little better about my own black hair.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But, that’s not why I’m here.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re here for the devil story,” she says, just from looking at me again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How could you tell?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Everyone wants to know the devil story.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now, the tie between the devil and rock and roll is as old as Robert Johnson, if not older, but the story about Ruby Baptiste and The Devil is different--at least from what I’ve heard. Just the existence of the story is, itself, legendary. Contested in both weed circles and academic ones, often claiming to stem from the vilification of black women, rock music, and miscegenation.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s 2000, right?” she says, looking to me for confirmation.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, August 15, 2000.” (The time of the interview.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Alright. Yeah, I can tell you the devil story. It probably doesn’t live up to all you’ve heard though.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The real story rarely does,” I say, eager with my pen and paper.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve gotta tell it just right, otherwise it loses some of its magic,” she says, as a way of buying time for her memory.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It was actually in this very bar,” she says, tapping the table with her knuckles and twisting her body to point to the end of the old formica bar, “He sat right there.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It was 1955, early August--or maybe late July, but it was hot. Me and my guitar up on stage bringing down the house. And, when I finished my set, the bartender--Sammy, told me the fella at the end of the bar was picking up my tab. Handsome man, three piece suit, white as Dixie with his hat down real low. He joined me and said, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Now, what do I gotta give you for an encore? </span>
  </em>
  <span>I didn’t say anything, because I’m used to men trying to chat me up after a show.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ever the showman, she take a sip for a pause.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So, this man he takes his hat off to reveal a pair of horns, and he says, </span>
  <em>
    <span>I could give you fame. I could give your fortune. If you’ll just play one song for me.</span>
  </em>
  <span> I shook my head. Didn’t need the devil to get where I am. So, he tried another tactic, </span>
  <em>
    <span>I could give you eternal youth. Or a kingdom just for you.</span>
  </em>
  <span> I shook my head again. The devil looked at me with his big blue eyes, and he said, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Come on, Miss, name your price and I’ll give it to you.</span>
  </em>
  <span>”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I’m enraptured, even as she seems to be stuck in this part of the memory.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So, I said to the devil: </span>
  <em>
    <span>Mister, I’ll give you a song, in exchange for one thing and one thing only.</span>
  </em>
  <span>”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby Baptiste lifts her left hand and waggles the heavy diamond on her finger at me, “</span>
  <em>
    <span>All you just offered, and a diamond ring, and I’ll sing whatever you like.</span>
  </em>
  <span>”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Me and the devil</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Walking side by side</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>And I'm gonna see my woman</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>'til I get satisfied</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Me and The Devil - Gil Scott Heron vers.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>Fall. 1965</b>
</p><p>
  <span>She doesn’t want to say, “I told you so,” in the year 1965. And 1965 has been a fucking year already. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Still, the more things change, progress-wise, the more the end up staying the damn same. More black bodies piled up in the war for equality. And, today, a reminder that one of those bodies could belong to her little girl.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>William tries to interject but she holds a finger up. He sighs, deflating in that lazy kind of way where his hands find his pockets. His face slips into one of cool observation, which is pulled off better than when he’s Christina.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We are enrolling her in a black school,” Ruby orders.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>William purses his face, foxy and furious, before exhaling, “School sizes on the South side are already inflated. They’re already splitting school days into shifts to accommodate, and she might not get a full day’s education.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby’s nostrils flare, like she doesn’t know that. Like it isn’t what every beauty shop conversation is about these days.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why don’t we shop around, see what the other private schools have to offer?” he suggests.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Right, so you can hand another headmaster a wad of cash only for him to turn a blind eye when some nasty little white--” she self-censors as a pair of other parents pass, giving them a wide berth, “There are kids like her at black schools.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And still white teachers who will turn a blind eye. If we want her to succeed and get a good education--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She’s getting one regardless,” Ruby steps a step higher to be nose to nose with her husband, “Because her daddy has deep pockets and her mama’s got smarts. Got that, Mr. Davenport?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A smile crosses William’s eyes. The smile of how much her husband loves it when she bosses him (her) around.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, Mrs. Davenport,” his voice comes out as a husk against her mouth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby blinks hard, thoroughly aware how out in the open they are. Miscegenated kissing in public isn’t illegal in Chicago, but it is the kind of thing that gets you a flaming cross sent to your address.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>William kisses her anyway, letting their lips stick at the seam, and she leans into it, feeling invincible in his arms.</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>Professor William Davenport is a face she puts on at the beginning of the day. It’s Christina Braithwhite who crawls out of bed at five-thirty, kissing her wife’s shoulder as she goes. It’s William Davenport who fucks his wife against the boudoir mirror at six, then helps the kids get ready for school at six-thirty. It’s William who drives the children to their black school across town in his silver Bentley, then to the University of Chicago where he teaches Introduction to Anatomy and Physiology.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Standing in front of the class, having students hanging on every word (in part because they need this if they want to get into medicine, but largely because Professor Davenport is young and handsome) is all Christina could have dreamed of.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Naturally, such concessions of dreams exist, which is why William fails to school his emotions when he switches slides and a derogatory phrase projects over his face and board.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A pair of ‘g’s cover his eyes, while the word ‘lover’ splays smaller on the blackboard. A sharp hit to a soft area he wasn’t aware was so exposed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Boys. Fucking childish hyenas playing around with their newfound power. He gets a new batch every year, all snickering at the back of the class. He pops his tongue against his cheek and turns his back to school his features, not hurt, murderous. He counts to three, thinking of how satisfying it would be to smash their heads into their desks until not is left but blood and pulp. Turn it into a fun classroom experiment. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Now, class, as you can see, the lacrimal bone is the most fragile bone in the face.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Gentlemen, do you care to explain to me what you find so amusing about the ulna?” he plays dumb.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The one with the long face and brown hair sneers, two of the others are whispering to each other. William--Christina fantasizes of growing her nails long just to gouge their eyes from their heads with.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, if you’re quite finished, I’d like to get back to the lesson,” he says instead.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He goes to inspect their seats for somewhere to place a hex and finds they’ve left a drawing. A crude one of himself, kissing a gorilla in a dress.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina desires these boys dead, ideally in humiliating ways, and William is Christina’s will. So it will be so, and not for the first time, does he appreciate living in a city so renowned for its violence.</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>Mama won’t let her dress like a pirate. Not after a rock hit her face, making her eye got all swollen and purple. Then, she got an eyepatch, but it was white and pillowy with bandages. The ultimate in disappointment, because she asked for a black one! Now, it’s off and all that’s left of it now is a little purple spot under her eye. She’s supposed to start her new school tomorrow, and Mama won’t let her dress like a pirate.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Daddy would let her dress like a pirate, but he always works late, leaving her with Auntie Christina, Isaac, and Christopher. Her brothers always make her play ‘the girl’, so it’s her aunt whose hand she tugs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I wanna be a pirate!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Which Auntie Christina misinterprets, because she makes that pursed face and returns with a piece of paper she’s drawn a map on, “You can ask your brothers for help, but I think you’re clever enough to find this treasure yourself.” And gives Thea one of those toothy smiles. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>What she meant was that she wants a hook hand and an eye patch. These accessories go forgotten as she sits on the landing inspecting the squiggles staring back at her from loose leaf.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Isaac and Christopher come running in--as boys always seem to do, and skid to a stop when they see her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s that?” Christopher scratches his belly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A treasure map.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Let me see!” and Isaac tries to pull it from her fingers. She yanks it back, and the paper slips into her skin, giving it a new separation seam. One that wells with blood, before staining the freshly torn page.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She doesn’t shriek, but Christopher does. Sharp as a whistle.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It does its job, bringing Auntie Christina loping with searching hands and eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then Thea’s sitting on the sink while Auntie washes away the blood, “This is gonna sting,” she says, dabbing at the spot with alcohol. Thea whimpers, but does not cry.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s my brave girl,” Auntie says just like Daddy. A kiss to the spot, and a bandaid and she’s all better.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Isaac ruined the treasure map,” Thea whispers through the sticky block in her throat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She lets herself be fussed over, long fingers wiping away tears, and a slim nose bumping her forehead before a kiss is placed there. The spot is picked like the best one for a picnic, with careful deliberation. Auntie doesn’t do anything haphazardly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s the thing about treasure maps, Thea, they’re often damaged when you find them. That’s half the fun of the deciphering.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The boys are standing just outside the bathroom, properly chastised. Christopher still has fat tears sticking to his lashes, making his eyes look even bluer. Only Isaac has Mama’s pretty brown eyes. And, he averts them with shame and a mumbled apology.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thea clings to her auntie’s slacks as Christina delivers a stern warning, “Go wash up, boys. Dinner’s in twenty minutes and I want you clean for your mother.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mama’s making a new record that’s gonna be all over the radio soon, like The Beatles. Soon she’s gonna be singing on Ed Sullivan, but that means spending all day in the recording studio and only coming home at night.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thea’s putting the pieces of the map--using her own blood as a reference--back together when she hears heels on the porch. Then the door swings open and Mama brings warmth and colour into the house. She always kisses Auntie Christina on the corner of the mouth when she gets home, and Auntie Christina always takes Mama’s things and puts them away, asking about her day.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>On nights when Daddy’s home for dinner, he’ll kiss Mama like they’re in a movie. The kind of romantic kiss that Thea sees on TV. Sometimes he and Mama’ll even sway in the doorway, like they’re dancing to a private song.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>On a night like tonight though, she hears Auntie Christina say her name, and Mama catches her eye between the banisters.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Your Auntie told me that your finger got hurt,” Mama says, coming up the stairs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thea shows the offending finger, letting Mama inspect it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did she kiss it better?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thea nods.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mama looks behind her, seeing Auntie standing at the foot of the stairs looking at her like she’s the moon in the sky. The same way Daddy does, because that’s just how beautiful Mama is.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, good. It’s a secret, but your Auntie has special healing powers. Even better than me or Daddy’s,” and Thea is scooped up into Mama’s arms to be carried back downstairs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s cooking?” she asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Veal,” Auntie replies.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sounds good. Where are my boys?!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s greeted with thundering feet and happy shouts.</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ruby knows exactly the kind of man-slash-woman she married. The kind of woman that could get her killed, if their family weren’t being protected by that same woman. Christina is danger wrapped in a pretty face. And, Ruby’s always been the kind to keep out of danger, but this danger came with opportunity. With Christina’s hand in her own, Ruby’s seen the lay lines of the earth. Sights like something out of Exodus. Creatures--monsters and gods, that belong not to the good book, but something dark and old and evil. And, Ruby has held the leash for this power.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Which is to say, opening the morning paper to find a fraternity house at the University of Chicago tragically burned down the night that her wife disappeared to “run an errand” while dressed to the nines is hardly surprising. It’s also low on the scale of shit Christina has pulled in their decade of marriage.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby still drops that Saturday headline onto her husband’s lap as he sips his coffee.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Students of yours?” she knows the answer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Maybe a few,” William hums into his sip, “It’s a shame. The wiring in those buildings really isn’t up to code. Fire hazard.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby snorts and shakes her head. She’ll press him on it later when there aren’t three witnesses who only seem to absorb the things they shouldn’t. (Even if their eyes are glued to The Jetsons.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Which is exactly what she does in the bath. Saturday is date night, which can be anything from dinner and dancing, to escaping through a portal to watch Vesuvius erupt over Pompeii, to a bottle of wine in the tub like tonight. Leti’s got the kids, so she’s got Christina between herself and the porcelain tub. She likes being bracketed by long limbs, and letting her head fall back onto a scrawny shoulder. Her wife’s sans makeup, blonde hair piled on top of her head, and puffing away on a pipe like some philosophy professor.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby bites her lower lip before stealing the pipe for an inhale. Ever, the gentleman, Christina lights the wick. Skunky smoke fills Ruby’s lungs. As a thank you, she blows smoke rings around her wife.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So, who’d you kill?” she asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina’s much more interested in kissing Ruby’s neck, so when she speaks, it’s through a fuzz of dark hair, “No one the world will miss.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“By the sound of it, their rich daddies will miss them.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll send them a sympathy card,” Christina nips at Ruby’s jaw.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What did they do to piss you off?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She feels the pause of nose against cheek and turns physically to observe her wife. Christina sighs, playing with her own fingers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They insulted you in my class.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby lets her eyes rest, chewing the inside of her cheek.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What are you thinking?” Christina asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That for someone who fronts as being above it all, you sure are easy to rile up.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina gives something between a smile and a sneer, “Contrary to the saying, there’s nothing divine about forgiveness. Gods are proud, vengeful creatures.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mmhm,” Ruby shakes her head, closing her eyes to hide the roll.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina takes the pipe back, smouldering around it. The water sloshes with her movement, some spilling over to hit the floor with a slap. Ruby’s hands disappear beneath the waves, grabbing and groping whatever she can. She bites her way into her wife’s mouth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mm?” Christina’s a little dazed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby draws a wet hand across her jaw, splaying out to cradle a blonde head. She locks eyes with her wife, and not for the first time, appreciating how much they can say without words.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But, today calls for words.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good girl, Christina,” kiss, “Good boy, William.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The body beneath her shudders with delight, enough to make Ruby smile, and dig her teeth into a bared throat.</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What do you want for our wedding anniversary?” Christina asks, once they’re in bed and wrapped around each other.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ten years. What’s that, crystal?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tin,” Christina corrects.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tin? ‘The fuck wants tin?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina shrugs. She’s more occupied with tracing symbols onto Ruby’s arms with her index finger. She doesn’t need to imbue Ruby with more magic, she already sings with it, but if she could, she’d turn Ruby into a textbook.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve had an idea for awhile now,” Ruby begins.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina makes a noise to say that she’s listening, but Ruby’s making little braids in her hair and it always puts her to sleep.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I want to fuck you,” Christina perks up, “As a man.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby’s leaning on her wrist while Christina straightens her figure, “As William or--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, I wanna fuck you as a black man. As a man who looks like me, the same way you and William--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina nods, absorbing the information.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’d have to find a new source for samples. There’s room in the lab for it, I’ve just never taken a body that I didn’t--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Didn’t know?” Ruby supplies.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina nods, “Unless you have someone in mind?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nope,” Ruby pops the ‘p’, “It’s your job to shop around. Find me a body to fuck you with.”</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>The weight of the task surprises her, feeling it bog down her knees the next day. Find a man, dead or dying, one with no kin to claim him, who stirs something inside her. A man who looks like her wife, but is of no relation. Cannot be traced back to them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The intellectual taboo of the task turns her on more than the idea of getting to add dick to her menu. Men have never been her thing. When she’s Christina she’s a lesbian, and when she’s William she’s a red blooded American man. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby as a man.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby’s eyes behind brown eyes, bulging biceps, an adam’s apple, </span>
  <em>
    <span>thighs</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby fucking her, having her, Ruby inside of her and over her--like and unlike they’ve done before.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s enough to slow her mind into autopilot during her lesson. Professor Davenport takes much too long to give up on the dying pen he’s using. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jocelyn, who sits in the front row every class, takes even longer to put her things away. It’s a move William usually gives a wide berth to. It’s flattering, really, no, Christina’s ego loves it. But, she has shopping to do and Ms. Hill’s dallying is preventing this.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m afraid I don’t have another class afterwards, so I have to lock up,” Professor Davenport says with the apologetic smile girls like.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sorry, Sir, I just wanted to ask you--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Here it comes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve been struggling with my muscle groups. Is it possible for me to come by for some extra instruction?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>William purses his lips and holds up a finger, before digging through his desk, “Lockheart, Fyfe, and Hamilton had this book printed just this year. It’s a little pricey, so I keep it off my required reading list, but you are free to borrow my copy. It’s very comprehensive on the living body. If you have any further questions, you can check my office hours.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He hands her the book and holds his keys out in his other hand, making no room for further conversation.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She tucks her hair behind her ears and nods, appropriately deflected with nowhere else to go.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Maybe I can pick your brain on your way to your car,” she asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Or, so Christina thought.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m afraid I’m in a bit of a rush. My wife’s working late, and I was going to bring her something to eat to tide her over,” William’s smile is brilliant.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jocelyn’s own expression falls, disappointed. William gives her a loose wristed wave, not looking back as he strides off.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s even an unanticipated spring in his step.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>One that doesn’t last.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>How in the fuck are there no usable black John Does at three different city morgues in Chicago? It’s fucking Chicago. The slim pickings that do exist are a man old enough to be her father, and some poor bastard who was left in the bath too long. Nothing fresh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>William beats his head against the steering wheel hair enough to muss his hair and make a woman walking down the sidewalk switch sides of the street.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A quick check in the rear-view exposes him for the madman he is.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Okay, plan B. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Being a white man has the perks of getting ask around the prisons about death row inmates. Hello, Gentlemen, any executions planned.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Even for a white man, this is sketchy. She should have come as herself. Could at least come off as one of those broads who sends panties to murderers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At least the guards get a kick out of telling her that a few of the boys are still waiting on hearings, the jail’s dry.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>William smiles and thanks them, managing to get back to the car before he feels his joints popping out of place. He fumbles for the potion top up in the glove, finding it there, thank Christ. He sits, watching his flickering his face in the rear-view stabilize before driving off.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Everything okay?” Ruby asks that night in bed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina, not wanting to vent any hindrance, shakes her head, instead closes her book, “Can I eat you out?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby scratches symbols into her back while she sucks her clit and thinks about maybe starting a gang war.</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>It’s an hour. An hour every Sunday. And she fucking loathes it. A too-warm room full of lies. Lies unspooling from the mouth of the preacher, talking of God and sin. Today’s lecture is on the evils of </span>
  <em>
    <span>Batman</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Something about the sinful costumes of tight spandex. Christina’s brain always checks out. With Thea to her left, deciphering this week’s puzzle, and Atticus to her right, reading Dune between the pages of the Bible. She exists in what is considered the intellectual sink of the pew. Atticus has recommended Dune, even offered to loan her his copy when he’s done. He says it’s right up her alley, with the magic and the elaborate power structures. Christina’s never been fond of pulp culture and she’s much too busy body shopping to read a book the size of a brick.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>William’s eyes graze over the churchgoers, recognizable faces at this point. Mr and Mrs Lincoln, whose general store she takes the children to for popcorn. The beautician bunch take up an entire pew, all fanning themselves in the late September heat. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s the white man sitting next to Cleo Johnson that gives William pause. He’s used to being the only white man at this particular church. He’s worked at acceptance--something that feels like glass in Christina’s soul, because impressing religious congregations is against her beliefs. William Davenport is now a mainstay of the Southside Gospel Church. He wears an apron at the cookout. His children attend Sunday school there. No, he is not happy about it, but the children need “a normal education” and “friends” which are both concepts Christina considers overrated. Though, this would explain why her best friend is her wife and her other closest friend is her second-cousin six times removed-slash-brother-in-law.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Still, people like William better than Christina. William gets along just fine with the fellas at the cookout. Even if he’s pretty sure the preacher calls him ‘white devil’ in private. His wife calls him that in public. It’s affectionate at this point.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thea taps his thigh, sliding the puzzle over. Completed, of course. And William beams, squeezing her shoulder, then showing the puzzle to Atticus.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He sighs and adjusts his glasses, “Congratulations, how many characters is that now?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“About eighty percent give or take,” William says out of the corner of his mouth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Atticus looks at Thea, who is already bored with the remaining twenty minutes. He shakes his head, having long since reached the acceptance stage of grief with his cousin. Leti shushes them from Atticus’s right.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The coffee and conversation part of church is only somewhat better than the fire and brimstone. (Thoroughly uninspired. Christina has seen fire and brimstone. She could give a give a hell of a homily.) </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby takes these afternoons to catch up with the rest of the church hens, leaving William to the cocks, all clucking around him. Talking in circles of their own plans. He’s learned to smile at the right moments, often looking across the room to Atticus for a life raft her cousin always ignores.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But! Today, William is free to sidle up to the new white man. He’s fit and well-groomed with a clean haircut and dog-like eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He raises his cup of coffee on William’s approach, and tucks the corners of his lips. Dimples. Disarming.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>William lies, but he doesn’t tell untruths and the line is one Christina’s spent her life mastering, “You must know by now that you’re the talk of the town. Some might have even wondered if Cleo was making you up.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The boy laughs and rubs the back of his neck, “Yes, well, we’ve been waiting for the right time for me to attend with her congregation. We met in theology--I have plans of becoming a minister--and she told me all about Reverend Grover and his teachings.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s clearly terrified. William wonders, with a pleasant smile, what this boy has been told of him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, welcome,” he says after what is a very long winded explanation with a lot of detail.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I haven’t introduced myself, excuse me. Adam Dawson,” he holds a sweaty hand out to shake.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“William Davenport.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The side eye of every black person in the church is on the pair of them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve heard a little about you,” he’s still sweating, “When I was worried about being a white man in a black church Cleo told me--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, I’ve been coming with my wife for--” and the sigh that escapes his lips is Christina’s existential angst at God and everything between for robbing her of her Sundays for--”Oh, almost a decade now.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Almost a decade.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She turns to look at Ruby, feeling the scolding heat of her gaze and firing a hard one back. The surprise, followed by a challenge shoots a thrill down William’s body and into Christina’s.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Adam nods, swallowing hard, “How do you like it here?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>William cocks his head at him, observing the full tableau of Adam, Cleo’s own nervous figure, and the set jaws of her own parents. It’s not like him with Ruby, an unmarried spinster with no parents to chase away white men with their bad intentions away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Me and the Reverend have our own disagreements on the nature of God and the universe,” William decides to say diplomatically, biting back Christina’s blunt hatred for the organization.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Adam laughs, “I may have heard a little about that as well.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>William smiles, “Well, it just means that if you keep coming you can be ‘the good one’.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It gets Adam’s shoulders to relax a little, which feels like something of a win.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So, you keep coming, why?” the kid can’t help but ask.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>William’s eyes find his wife again, this time milling about with Leti and Atticus, an opening she could take for escape, and just might.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My family’s here,” William says, “Not just my wife, but her sister, my brother-in-law,” as much as Christina delights in bringing up her kinship with Atticus, she saves that detail for another day, “If I weren’t here, I’d be at home waiting for them to get back. It matters to them, so it matters to me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(William’s always been the sappy one.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So, Ruth 1:16 then?” Adam says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>William waits for the clarification.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” Adam supplies by memory.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Samuel Braithwhite used to quote scripture. Only the bits about divinity, original sin, and order though. Nothing so tender.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Something like that,” Christina rasps, hiding potion in her sleeve to add to her coffee.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thea finds her after that, demanding to be carried, and at age nine, the days of piggybacks are already numbered.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can we go? I’m bored,” she says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina’s laugh surprises William’s body, “Alright, but you need to be the one to say it. I’ve used up all my ‘I’m bored’ cards on your mother.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Leti opens the circle to them, greeting William with the usual, “Stay away from my family, White Devil.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am your family, Letitia,” it’s a fun game they play.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mom, I’m borrrreed,” Thea groans, purposefully melting down her father’s back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Alright, alright, go fetch your brothers, we can go.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thea hoots, running off to fetch the boys from the game of soccer they’re playing with George and his friends.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Saw you talking to the new white boy,” Atticus remarks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why the hell did you go and do that?” Leti asks, “White people scheming and shit.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Y’all can’t be left alone too long. You start to get funny ideas,” Ruby adds.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Relax, I was just trying to save his soul. The poor boy wants to become a minister.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Atticus snorts on his coffee, without looking Leti pats his back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby rolls her lips the way she does when she’s trying to keep him from the satisfaction of making her laugh. Just another push then.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I told him, </span>
  <em>
    <span>you have so much to live for! Have you tried gambling? Sex out of wedlock?</span>
  </em>
  <span>”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby throws her head back with her laugh, marvellous dark lips and pale teeth catching the light. </span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>Doctor Jekyll is always tired after an eventful day of playing Mr. Hyde.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That’s how Ruby explains it. The shrunken spider of a woman in her bed at the end of the day. The bony limbs poking out of wine red sheets (a colour chosen after too many ruined sets), the wide blue eyes, and the cut of her cheekbones make her look like she’s on her deathbed. It’s like being William sucks the life out of Christina--but years of marriage has taught Ruby better. It’s not William devouring her energy, just being around people.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you for being good today,” Ruby says, dropping a knee to the mattress and crawling up to mount her wife’s lap. Christina flattens her bent knees to make space. Their foreheads bump, finding a natural place to rest, eyebrow to eyebrow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You don’t need to thank me for that every Sunday,” she says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t have to do a lot of things. And besides, you’re not good </span>
  <em>
    <span>every </span>
  </em>
  <span>Sunday. Sometimes you’re a real bitch.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina nods.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Something on your mind?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think the young Adam may have bestowed some wisdom upon me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Must’ve been some wisdom to get you to admit such a thing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A passage from the Book of Ruth,” Ruby frowns in confusion, and Christina lifts her hands, revealing the highlighted page, “Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God,” her voice catches, but she can’t stop while Ruby is looking at her, “Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh.” Ruby inhales, then exhales, “‘Stina.” Christina doesn’t look up, keeping her eyes on the sheets. Ruby leans forward instead, pressing her nose to her wife’s temple. “Where do you get off saying heavy shit like that?” Despite the tone, Ruby rubs her nose in a nuzzle, just the way William likes to do. Long fingers crawl up her shoulders, then card into her hair. Clinging like some kind of bedridden princess from a fairy tale.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t say it enough,” Christina replies after some thought.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She doesn’t. When she says such things as herself they come out like secrets, or pretty lies. Wicked girl with a wicked tongue. But she doesn’t lie. Just grew up biting her tongue until it bled. Ruby knows this because she knows everything about her wife. Ruby knows this, because she grew up doing the same.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know Daddy Braithwhite raised an ‘actions, not words’ girl, so you don’t gotta say it.” Ruby gathers her wife up, like a big blonde puddle, into her lap, “But it’s nice you did.”</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>Thea thinks she’s very clever, but she is still under the impression that there are six people living in their house instead of five. Like, she’s never gotten up for a glass of water and encountered Daddy in the kitchen, with his too-big pajamas and his long white hair.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Go back to bed, Isaac,” he drawls, mouth tucked to the side, the way he does.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And, he does, after finishing his glass. And, he leans into the long fingers that play with his hair.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Goodnight Daddy,” he says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Daddy doesn’t correct him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That’s okay at home, he’s discovered, because home is safe. Daddy can wear any face he wants to. But, outside--at school, at the store, at the park--Daddy needs to remember which face he’s wearing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When his hair is short he can help ladies with their things, and play sports with him and Christopher. When his hair is long, men at the market fall over themselves to help. The ladies at the beauty shop look at Daddy like he’s a snake, instead of cooing over how good he is with his children.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When he tries to flip the script, that’s when you get a day like today. One where they’re both sitting on the porch with split lips and bruised eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Keep your ice on that,” Daddy drawls.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s melting and leaking all over my face,” Isaac whines.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Daddy won’t stop tonguing the cut in his lip, “You need to shoulder the temporary discomfort to be better off in the long run.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Isaac groans, but holds the ice in place.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was over a swing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Isaac felt the wind leave his body when he hit the gravel. The other boy stood over him, red hair mussed by the scuffle. They could be brothers, maybe, Isaac though at the time. Same height, curly hair, freckles, brown eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But the other boy called him a raccoon instead, which was weird, because he didn’t think he looked like a raccoon.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He didn’t get a lot of time to think about it because Daddy was marching up in his high heels and his big white hat, and getting right in the face of the other boy’s mother. It was funny too, because Daddy is taller than Uncle Tic when he’s wearing his heels. Bigger than Batman, probably.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Care to explain why the last time I looked up, my son was on that swing, and now he’s on the ground?” Daddy’s accent always got really strong when he was mad.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I guess you should be keeping a better eye on your son, because when my son asked politely if he could use the swing, your boy pushed him.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If he pushed him then why is it that my son is the one on the ground?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My son pushed him back in retaliation. He has a right to defend himself against violent thugs.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Daddy laughed, a nasty fake laugh, “Right, a seven year-old in a bow tie is a thug now.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You can dress up a monkey, but you can’t make it play nice with the other children,” this is when Daddy punched the other lady right in the nose.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Great, just another park they couldn’t go to anymore.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It turned out that when ladies acted like men that people didn’t like that too much, especially the other lady’s husband.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Daddy sighs, moving his own cold glass against his bruised eye.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can I tell you something? Without you getting mad?” Isaac asks, the ice pack dripping through his fingers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course,” Daddy says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Isaac takes a deep breath, inspecting the drips of water on the floor. Mama’s gonna be mad that they got the carpet wet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He kept asking me for the swing and I just got so mad that he wouldn’t shut up. So I pushed him. It was my fault.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He feels the weight of his father’s hand, steady on his shoulder, “It doesn’t matter.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It does!” Isaac protests.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No. Guilty or innocent, they already had their minds made about you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Isaac chews his lip. He doesn’t like that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Daddy squeezes his shoulder hard enough to crack a knuckle, “Just promise me something, Son.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Isaac looks up at pale eyes and bloodied lips, “Push him harder next time.”</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>They don’t fight.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They discuss.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Passionately, sometimes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But, they do not fight.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This is not a fight.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t understand why you deny me the ability to protect my children, when that is something you have made me very aware of as an urgent need for children like them.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Right, because your daddy making you invulnerable did you so well.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes! I never had my lacrimal bone shattered by a rock before my tenth birthday!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, well they aren’t growing up in Buttfuck Nowhere, Massachusetts surrounded by guard dogs! They’re growing up in the real world. And the real world is going to burn magical black children at the stake!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Which wouldn’t harm them if you would let me give them a Mark of Cain!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina isn’t yelling. She’s raising her voice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s no yield to Ruby’s hard stare.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s a rite of passage for black children,” she says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You and me, accepting the world as it is isn’t for us,” Christina grabs her by the wrists, “We have taken part in creation. We are gods, my heart, why would you want this for our family.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby tilts her head back, barely moving her lips, “Because you said it yourself. To be a God is Heaven and Hell.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina’s face is a stone as she leaves. Ruby doesn’t grab her, doesn’t follow. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It doesn’t hurt. Christina doesn’t want to be followed. She needs time to think, and that’s not a collaborative activity.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Auntie, when’s Daddy getting home?” Thea’s sitting at the kitchen table with a glass of iced tea and a quizzical look.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Later tonight,” Christina sighs, pushing honey-blonde hair behind an ear (Ruby’s ears) and kissing a brown cheek.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It feels like sleepwalking, grabbing her keys and leaving through the front door. There’s a nostalgia to speeding through traffic, letting Chicago whizz by.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But, she knows this neighbourhood, knows children play here, and slows her car. She knows every street and cross now. She knows the faces. It’s not just a chessboard with pieces to move around. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The trades she’s made for the life she has have given her these gaping weak points that not even her Mark of Cain can cover.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her car pulls up to a familiar curb, but the family moving into the house across the street is new. A handsome black family moving in on a Sunday afternoon with no opposition. It gives Christina a pleased spring to her step, fucking Lancaster would be furious.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The door opens before she can knock.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Damn, that is a hell of a shiner,” Leti says, standing in the door like a guard. Christina ducks her head, like, </span>
  <em>
    <span>you’ve got me there</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Leti rolls her jaw, before stepping aside.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Respect,” Leti sighs, letting Christina passed the barrier and to the kitchen where she offers her a beer by the neck. Beer is a drink expected of William, but that doesn’t mean she has to enjoy it. However, one of the niceties instilled into her by Ruby is ‘accept gifts when offered’, so she cracks the cap.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina plays with her hands when she doesn’t know what to say. Usually, riling Leti up is her goal. Any little comment, jab, or innuendo will do, but this is … humbling.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It breaks your chest right open, doesn’t it?” Leti says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina takes a sip of beer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“George changed me. For the better. I was … reckless, with myself and others before. Now, it’s like, I owe it to him, and to the world to change things. Fix things.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You were always a force of change, Letitia,” Christina says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, but it was out of anger more than love. Just so fucking angry all the time.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mmhm.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Leti finishes her puttering in the kitchen to finally sit on a stylishly clashing chair opposite Christina. The light hits her eyes just right, giving them an auburn hue in the afternoon sun. She knocks her beer back, swan neck going with gulps before grinning at Christina.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Honestly, giving you three mixed kids was the best atonement God could have cooked up for you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina uses a thumbnail to begin flaying the label, “I reap what I sow.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I had one little black boy, and that gave me the fear of the devil and everything between. Can’t imagine having to manage that fear with three kids,” Leti leans in, eyes turning back to black in the shadows and leaning close enough for Christina to feel her breath, “It fucking terrifies you. And, it’s the first time you’ve had a good reason to be scared you wizard bitch.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It is fear.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Fear is a barbed noose hauling her down a dock.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A premeditated fear. One that began with Thea’s first cry. Holding her little girl with her squished face and fine birth curls. Ruby looked at her and said at that moment, “She’s gonna ruin you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then they did it another two times. Building their little pantheon, home acting as Olympus on high.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How do you live with it?” Christina asks after a pregnant pause.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Leti creaks back in her chair, “You don’t have a choice.”</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>It’s a five hour drive to Detroit from Chicago, give or take twenty minutes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thanks for taking them for the weekend, Dee,” Ruby says, flashing her teeth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Diana’s grown into a beautiful young woman who takes absolutely zero shit from anybody. That’s why the genuine affection in the hug she gives Ruby feels like an honour. It’s nice, passing this torch, from sitter to sitter in their relationship. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Feel free to raid the fridge,” William says, dark sunglasses hiding his unmarred face as he tucks the last suitcase into the back of the Bentley.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh I will,” Diana wraps her arm around him as well, albeit less warmly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Got everything?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The kids are lined up like ducks in a row, attitudes ranging from surly (Isaac) to excited (Christopher). Her babies. Little chunks of her heart running around the yard. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I wanna go,” Isaac whines, hugging his father’s waist.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Next time,” he sighs, reaching for Thea, “Mind Diana.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christopher clings to her neck. Where are his shoes? She just put them on him. “We’re gonna stay up and watch The Twilight Zone.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’d better not, that show gives you nightmares.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not scared!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby meets her husband’s eye with some skepticism. William smirks behind his sunglasses, moving to corral all three children between them, “Absolutely. Christopher’s a big boy now. Brave enough to watch the Twilight Zone, and sleep through the night without waking us up.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She can see the gears turning in her youngest’s head as he discovers the extent of his mistaken assurances of bravery. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is Auntie staying here?” Thea asks, looking around for hide or hair of Christina.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, your aunt had to go visit Boston on some business. She’ll be back around the same time we are.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Diana rolls her eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s a long drive, we should get going,” William says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’ll call when we get to the hotel,” Ruby says, giving out the last round of hugs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Drive safe,” Diana says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They don’t. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>With invulnerable bodies and an invulnerable car, road safety is just a suggestion. The first neck of the trip, hugging the lake, is quiet, just the radio between the two of them. Christina always keeps her free hand on Ruby’s thigh when she drives, tapping in time to The Four Tops, then changing the station as it switches to The Beatles. It’s always the little things that you love most about the person you married.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina is the picture of American masculinity, with William’s combed hair fluttering in the wind. His sharp jaw, his arm resting on the window, the strong line he cuts with his suit. The way that they coordinated colours this morning.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can feel you staring,” Christina says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can’t I admire my husband?” Ruby asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course, it’s a bit unfair that I can’t do the same right now. Especially when you’re dressed like that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Like That is a blue tie neck dress with sheer sleeves and black stockings that shine in the fall light. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You like it?” Ruby asks, voice dropping, and eyeline dropping to her man’s lap as a test.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know damn well I like it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby stretches out along the bench seat, very interested in the stirring of her husband’s lap.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, let’s give you a chance to appreciate it then,” Ruby says, unzipping his fly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The radio croons with, </span>
  <em>
    <span>“What’s New, Pussycast?”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>If it were Christina’s lap she was splayed against, she’d have bony thighs squirming under her mouth (and she’s done it, but the angle is harder) , but as William there’s a calm anticipation.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She chases the wet streak in blue boxers to find the dripping head of his cock.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Always so wet for me,” Ruby says with no shortness of adoration, before taking it into her mouth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fuck,” William bites a knuckle.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This is what invincible feels like. Sucking that pink dick in the front seat of a Bentley the law says she owns half of. Her wife, the most powerful being she knows in this world or many others, being reduced to a puddle by her lips and tongue. The way that Christina cups her head, wedding ring clicking against Ruby’s earring. Doing all of this, something that could get them arrested or worse, on an open road with more money than God. What the fuck is some pissy cop gonna do if he catches them? She’ll shoot him herself and go back to working that dick.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She used to resent this safety. This, shield, being next to Christina. Basking in the light of her privilege. Her money. Her status. Her whiteness. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>After all, what is a shield, but something to take away? What is the catch. What does Christina Braithwhite want in exchange?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The exchange, is holding the other side. It’s wrapping herself around a shuddering, terrified pale body until the tremors leave. It’s mopping a sweaty forehead, brushing back blonde hair. Vulnerability. It has to be held by both sides, taught, like a string. Can’t let it slack. Can’t let it snap. And, that’s marriage.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll do you next,” Christina pants after finishing, jaw tensed and glowing from sweat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can wait, Baby, there’s still three hours to go,” Ruby kisses her, smiling as Christina’s tongue darts out to meet hers. Tasting herself on Ruby’s tongue. Filthy bitch.</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>Making good on eating her wife out, it seems, will have to wait. Their arrival at the hotel comes with some fanfare. Men. From the record label. Waiting in the lobby with a sign.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey-hey, Ms. Baptiste. It’s good to meet you!” A man with sunglasses says, being very friendly with Christina’s wife.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You must be Michael, we spoke on the phone.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Please, call me Kell.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s moments like these that remind Christina not only of her outsider status, but of a life of being standing just outside the bubble of engagement. She could hold her father’s hand while he spoke to the other men of the Order, but not be part of that discussion. Just like now, when she’s instructing the bellhop where to take their things like some fucking driver.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“--This is my husband, William--” Ruby is saying, because Ruby knows all about that insecure monster at the base of the nesting doll of monsters that build up the woman she married.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So, she slides right in there, all big smiles and strong handshakes, enjoying the surprised looks exchanged by the record label men.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“William, pleased to meet you,” she says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You a Will or a Bill?” Kell asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Will if you’re going to shorten it,” she says, goosing a possessive hand over Ruby’s hip. She leans into the touch in such a way that Christina knows she’s not the only one ornery and fired up after that car ride.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So kind of you gentlemen to meet us,” William begins.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Kell was just saying he’d like to take us out, show us around town,” Ruby says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s so beautiful, flushed and glowing under the slowly illuminating hotel lights. Her nude lips artfully bitten. She’s looking up at Christina with a rowdy challenge. Yes, she also wants to be christening hotel sheets, but they go out as a couple so little.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sounds like fun,” Christina says, happy to be wearing William, because his face fakes enthusiasm better. She takes a swig from a hip flask of potion. Yes, it makes Mr. Davenport look like an alcoholic, but she was running out of single serving glass bottles.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby’s hand drifts into hers and they stand there watching teenage boys in sweaty uniforms scuffle over who gets to park the Bentley.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s a good thing they can’t get a scratch on it,” she jokes against William’s shoulder.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina exhales sharply through her nose.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The other record label man is a magazine-quality man named Devon. Christina feels puzzled as to why she can’t stop staring. It must be the doe eyes, or the delicate curve of lips. An elbow to the side from Ruby has William redirecting his gaze to find a knowing smirk.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?” he mouths.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby shakes her head. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dinner and drinks are at a club called The 20 Grand, which means nothing to Christina but Ruby gets very excited to receive the tour.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s not that she doesn’t care about the music. Ruby’s first spell was in a song. Her second spell is the glamour carved into the neck of Christina (the guitar, not her). A love spell, really, one that makes the crowd see Ruby the same way Christina does. A goddess come down from the heavens to deliver them from boredom. Boredom that Christina’s sighing through as Kell postures himself and the club as more important than they are. Devon keeps quiet, acting very much a yes-man.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So, how long have you two been married?” Kell asks as they sit down.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The booth is at least a good opportunity to be close, slinging an arm around her wife to squeeze Ruby’s shoulder.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’ll be ten years in November,” William supplies.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kell looks directly at Ruby who laughs, “Look, I sing the blues. Songs about some man running around, letting me down sells singles. Songs about living with the love of my life and our three children in Hyde Park? Ain’t gonna get sung along to in the beauty shop.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina kisses Ruby’s hand distractedly, “We all love a tale of a scorned woman.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sorry, just assumed that Ruby Baptiste was singing about some man with some more soul,” Kell says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby bristles, William’s hand drops to squeeze her thigh. Instead, he flashes a too-big smile, “It’s true. The only soul I know are the kind I buy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kell and Devon exchange looks that are equal parts confused and alarmed. It’s enough of a tangent to change the topic of conversation for dinner. The charade is exhausting, not just the loose feeling of William’s skin, but the play acting. False interest. Ever so interested. Mr. Davenport with his expensive watch and his white hair. Ruby Baptiste’s perfect husband. Doesn’t even care about her not taking his last name.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(Legally, Ruby is hyphenated, if only to keep their claims on Braithwhite money, deeds, and books. Legally, Christina is as well. William Baptiste-Braithwhite, regardless of the look it got her from the judge and the priest. There needs to be no ambiguity about her family line and where her blood ties lie.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Devon, how about you? Got any family?” Ruby asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>William takes another sip of potion.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, Ma’am. I was brought up in a boarding house.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, that’s a shame, Baby.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>William feels the creep of his wife’s hand onto his thigh, giving a phantom shiver from her earlier work.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And are you rising in the company? Star player here?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kell laughs, “Right now he’s one of those uh … interns. Fetching coffees and stuff.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Always a good place to start,” Christina says, feeling the insistence of Ruby’s drumming fingers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina has killed. A lot. She’s done a tally and it’s shy of a hundred, but not by a lot. The best kills are indirect, like setting a fire, locking a door, and going down the street to get an ice cream. Murder is different. Murder is messy and painful.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s been murdered. It’s not fun.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The agreement had been to find a body. Pre-dead. More like antiquing than theft.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But it’s what Ruby wants, and Ruby having any strong want is enough to get Christina hard and panting.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Especially when that want is something so wanton and taboo.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The series of glances they exchange after the cheque is enough to formulate a plan.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>One that involves crossing a busy street and their own natural invulnerability. One poor Devon lacks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s the screech of tires and the thud of impact. Ruby does a great impression of a scream. William runs to the payphone, dialling nine-one-one as concerned citizens check the body.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A freak accident, really.</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Spoke to the coroner’s office, he’s no next of kin to claim the remains, so I’ve kindly offered to buy a plot,” Christina stretches out under her towel, feeling the relief of her own limbs touching the air. She’s seated at the vanity, cooling off from a very steamy bath. Ruby comes in, fully nude with her own towel wrapped around her hair.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If we get the proper container I can whip up a cooling spell,” she says, standing over Christina as she fluffs her own reflection. Christina leans up to pull a dark nipple between her lips, fingers skating down Ruby’s stomach and to the slick wetness she’d just been enjoying.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re frisky,” Ruby laughs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina looks up at her, hoping she can communicate exactly how much it thrills her when Ruby is the one planning their devious deeds. When Ruby is the one treating The Book of Names like a recipe book, making magic with a flick of her fingers. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But all that comes out is a whisper of, “I love you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know, Baby.”</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Detour 1955</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>*wipes mascara tears off face* anyway.</p><p>When I went to school for storyboarding I learned that characters have these things called "arcs" where you can see them progress from one state to another in a clear and defined path informed by these other things called "motivations" which provide depth to that character. If you have a grasp on your characters you can let their shared development inform the story instead of some pre-determined plot outcome and soundbite you think is cool.</p><p>Everyone has their own version of fixing that ending. Here's mine. Back to 1965 next chapter.</p><p>Bon Appetite.</p><p>TW for mentions of creepy fathers, non-consensual drugging, non-consensual soulmate bonds, Ancient Rome, and biblical sexual roleplays.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>September 22. 1955. One Day Until Autumnal Equinox.</b>
</p><p>
  <span>Eloise Baptiste owned one half of a beauty parlour. Yes, the pretending to speak to the dead half, but regardless of that, Ruby spent a lot of her childhood doing homework in the back of that beauty parlour. She swept up hair, she made change, and most importantly she learned to listen.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Because, a beauty parlor is actually a den of secrets for women. One of the few safe places to trade information and resources alone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Poor sixteen year-old Monique who came in to get her nails done, but spent her time sniffling to Mama about a baby she couldn’t afford to have. So, Mama directed Monique to an address where they helped women and girls become un-pregnant.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mrs. Sterling, whose husband owned the laundromat, spoke in low tones with Ella (who did the books and the hair) and Mama about her husband, Earl.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t like the way he looks at Jenny now that she’s started becoming a young lady.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She didn’t want him doing anything she couldn’t stop.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So, Ella gave her an envelope.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Put these in his drink with dinner. He should just get real sleepy and real suggestible. Do it every night until your girl’s out of the house if you need to. Come back any time for a refill.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That salon has since been turned into an ice cream shop, the overhead being too much for one woman. Ella opened another one a few blocks away. Which is where Ruby goes. Her lover knows this is where she goes, because Ruby tells her over breakfast.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina’s there, but not really there, eyes so bright and eager with the final planning stage of her great ascension. She’s more animated than Ruby’s ever seen her. All long fingers twisting and talking with the bounce of her shoulders.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s adorable.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The kind of adorable sight that Ruby’s getting used to, and wants to keep getting used to. Time’s like a sieve though, and she can see the hourglass for the last flecks of sand they have.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m going to get my nails and hair done for the big day. Do you want to come?” she asks, because she knows Christina will say--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have some errands to attend to,” then swoop in for a kiss, “Next time though.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby wants to kiss her long and hard. She wants to savour every last moment. But, Ruby’s smart, and she knows not to tip her hand. So, she gives Christina their normal ‘good-day’ peck and takes the Bel Air to Ella’s beauty shop.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ella gives her an up and down, and Ruby can see the shared looks between some of the beauticians. The gossip has made it this far.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sit down, Baby, I’ve been cutting this hair since before you could walk,” Ella says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby does, she accepts the glass of iced tea, and the questions circle around the question about </span>
  <em>
    <span>that white boy </span>
  </em>
  <span>she’s been seen with.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Questions like: “You got yourself a fella yet, Miss Ruby?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby smiles, “I got a sweetheart.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Whatever happened to you and Coretta’s son, Daniel?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Pretty sure he’s married with kids in Cincinnati. And, I’d rather die a spinster than move to Ohio.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Which gets a pretty good laugh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So, this new guy, think he’s the one to finally tame Ruby Baptiste?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby rolls her shoulders, used the the tug and trim of Ella’s comb and scissors.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s a good question. Is this, any of this, all of this, worth it? Trouble with Leti, trouble with Atticus, trouble for all of Chicago probably, all for some skinny white girl who told Ruby a line about seeing magic?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After all, what is two months of amazing sex and communication in the grand scheme of her life? A lot, actually. It’s been a life of sweeping hair, dusting other people’s houses, and handing over every spare cent she has to Mama or Leti. Ruby Baptiste, still trying to carve a space out for herself and her guitar as she only gets older and less bankable. She sees a future of fighting for what she gets, but fighting all the same. And, Ruby’s fucking tired. She’s exhausted of fighting to be seen and heard. So, yes, a skinny white girl who sees her, who hears her, and holds her like she’s precious, is worth it. She wants her future to be in that big house in Hyde Park. She wants magic to sing from her. She wants money and she wants sex, and she wants to wake up to those bright eyes every morning.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby’s aware that she’s in her feelings, rolling around in the sheets of Christina Braithwhite, but she has done the cost benefit analysis.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nah, my man doesn’t want me tamed. That’s why I know he’s the one,” Ruby says, and a breath later asks, “Do you still have any of those pills you used to give Mrs. Sterling? The ones for her migraines.” She specifies, even though she doesn’t have to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ella’s face turns stony, “Got a headache Ruby?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby smirks, “Just a little one. I love my man, but he’s like a dog with a bone with this one thing, and I know I can convince him otherwise … if I just get rid of the headache.”</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <b>September 23. 1955. Day of the Autumnal Equinox.</b>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s about as steady as a newborn foal, and sitting on the couch, giving the room a stare that is both deep and completely empty of thought.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You drugged Christina,” Leti repeats.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, we’ve established this,” Ruby says, returning her attention to Hippolyta, “If you could write it down for me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hippolyta squints in thought before taking out her notebook. She begins furiously writing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Atticus wipes more sweat off his face, eyes beady from sleepless weeks. He buries his face in his hands, then looks back at her. She can feel the heat of Montrose’s mistrust from over her shoulder.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So, you’ve uh, stopped the ascension by stopping her from even getting to Ardham?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, we’ve also established this. ‘Lyta, please?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There’s a few parts that require demonstration. I can take Woody, give you the run-down.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re gonna toss her into that multiverse machine?” Atticus sounds impressed, his forehead a map of wrinkles.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No. I’m not going to just toss her in there like trash. I’m taking my woman on a vacation from all this,” she makes a vague gesture around everything, “Bullshit. Gonna talk her out of her daddy’s crazy and come back when it’s all over. You’re welcome.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Montrose scoffs, </span>
  <em>
    <span>“Your woman</span>
  </em>
  <span>, talking like a white witch like that like she can reasoned with or owned. You think you’re in control, but you’re just a house negro she lets warm her bed.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There’s only one person here who can’t be reasoned with and I’m looking right at him,” Ruby says, feeling the blood rush past her ears.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Enough of this!” Hippolyta, the other sane voice in the room, says, “You said you have the key?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Atticus lowers his eyes in shame, Ruby keeps her own icy gaze on Montrose, remove the key from her pocket and twisting it in the air.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We only need Hippolyta to come to show me how to use the machine,” Ruby reiterates.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Leti bares her teeth, leaning up on her knees, “There’s no damn way I’m leaving you alone in the car with her in case she wakes up pissed,” she hisses.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Even mad, Christina wouldn’t do anything to hurt me,” Ruby says with more confidence than she feels.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Leti holds her bat up and folds her arms, refusing to leave the car.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fine. But no one else is coming. It’d be damn stupid for Atticus to come when I am specifically doing this to keep him and Christina separated.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The drive to Kentucky is a long one, but the Bentley drives like a charm. With Woody ahead and open road behind, Ruby lets her shoulders sag for the first time in a week. A glance in the rearview gives her a smile in the form of Leti’s murderous look at Christina’s head slumped on her shoulder.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come on, Sleeping Beauty,” Ruby hauls her woman out of the car with some ease.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m impressed you can do that with bigfoot here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Please, she weighs like ten pounds soaking wet,” Ruby says. Christina has a strand of hair stuck to her lip, which Ruby adjusts, taking the extra moment to stroke a soft cheek.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, I don’t wanna hear about any wetness,” Leti mutters.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That makes Ruby smirk and tell the story of wetness with just her eye and brow movements. Christina mumbles something incoherently against her neck and Ruby bounces her idly. A big hand comes up to grab at her shoulder.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shhh, Baby, go back to sleep,” it’s the tenderness of the tone of voice that makes Leti gulp. She hates it, and she loves her sister.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come on,” Hippolyta calls, “This lever picks the date, the time, and then there’s the universe you have to factor in. That plus the rotation of the universe, so you’re not stuck floating through space instead.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby nods, absorbing some of it, “And, that world you were on … the one where the aliens let you be whoever you wanted, whenever you wanted.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Earth 504. Yes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Could you send us there?” Ruby asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hippolyta gives her a hard stare, chewing her lip. She looks from Ruby’s eyes, liquid in their plea, to the woman limply curled in her arms.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She’s worth it to you?” Hippolyta has to ask.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” Ruby says without hesitation.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay,” Hippolyta pulls the appropriate levers, “You should be able to leave whenever you need to, so long as the key is there, and so long as they … well, you’ll see for yourself.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The gears turn and the machine sputters to life. The world hums as a burst of energy tears a hole in it, exposing a patch of space, purple and black. Just darkness, like the edge of the pool before jumping in. Christina’s head flops up and she squints at the opening, unblinking. Her grip on Ruby’s shoulder tightens.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby takes a step forward, when Leti puts her body between Ruby’s and the portal, “Ruby, wait! You shouldn’t do this. Stay here, send her.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby sizes her sister up, face closing off as she says, “You know, Leti. I’m getting pretty damn tired of you interrupting me when I’m on my groove.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She shoves past her sister, choosing the uncertainty of space, and faith in the mercy of Hippolyta Freeman.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And, she falls.</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <b>Earth 504</b>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby’s first spell is conjuring butterflies. The words, provided by Christina, combined with her own intention, energy, and ingredients. Purple butterflies, fluttering like jewels burst from from smoke into the air. Just like the effects to Mama’s magic shows. One, brittle as a leaf, flutters down to land on her outstretched finger and it feels like.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>God, it feels like flying.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her eyes catch Christina’s in the mirror, all lit up and soft in a way that Ruby’s unused to seeing on her face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They’re beautiful,” she says, stepping deeper into Ruby’s spell circle, their warmths tantalizingly orbiting each other in the delicate push and pull of their tides. An elbow bumps hers. Ruby keeps her eyes on the butterflies, “They are.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Magic’s come easier since then. And, this spell, it’s one of her own making. The Language of Adam is just the channel. The incantation itself doesn’t actually matter. People commit to fancy sounding languages because it makes them feel safe.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not Ruby though. Ruby knows that the Bible is translated a little differently each time, and if you want the real thing you have to go to the source.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s not like she can see the source of magic--yet, but she knows what she needs for this spell.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her blood, Christina’s blood, a circle, and a whole lot of will.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hippolyta’s own wisdom comes in handy about the space ship--which, Ruby will admit, is pretty cool for about all of fifteen seconds before the white light becomes an eyesore. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am Ruby, spellcaster,” she announces, lover still held firmly in her arms.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The temple they’re transported is old. A set of stone bones in a jungle with the kinds of flowers she’s never seen before. It’s not like it has a fully stocked fridge, like Christina’s lab, but there’s a knife and an altar.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Just a prick of the finger, and of the breast. Ruby traces her own shapes and symbols across pale skin, then mimics the same onto her with with Christina’s floppy arm. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“I put a spell on you, because you’re mine,” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Ruby feels the magic on her tongue. It feels like metal and the air before a storm.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The words come, with the spell. A binding thread between two beings. Body and soul. One red thread, then another, until it’s like a sinew between them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And, it hurts. Fuck does it hurt. Enough to wake Christina from her slumber with a hoarse cry, scrambling around in the dirt and looking at Ruby in confusion.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ruby, where the hell are we?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby sinks to the ground, needing to get her breath, “I wanted to take us somewhere to make our dreams come true. An eternity of firsts, uninterrupted.”</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <b>Unknown Place and Time</b>
</p><p>
  <span>Faced with the opportunity for an immortality handed on a silver platter, Christina sees her plan for what it was.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Intellectual and magical posturing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This immortality itself feels cheap and unearned. This isn’t some fuck you to her father, this isn’t lifting a finger for a thought experiment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s everything she wanted and everyone she wanted and it tastes of bitter betrayal.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No blood sacrifice. No grand execution of an ascension. Ruby Baptiste cut the wind from her sails and set her free with the same blow and it makes her so fucking angry.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And so fucking grateful. For Ruby’s interruption. Always interrupting </span>
  <em>
    <span>her</span>
  </em>
  <span>, always pushing and pulling and reshaping Christina into something--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The metamorphosis goes both ways it seems. Just when she thought it was she reshaping Ruby into the perfect counterpart, it was herself being remade. Both of them tearing each other out of chrysalises. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now she’s floating in endless potential and she’s stuck. Stuck on the right word. Just a word. Just a name for herself and that is an experience. Every experience she could dream of or ask for.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I want to get away from you,” Christina says in her spite.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The universe bends and twists for a moment, obeying her wish, but like the snap of a rubber band, she goes shooting back to Ruby’s side.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby shakes her head, “Gonna have to try harder than that.” Exposing the threads of their bond.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina stamps her foot and storms off instead.</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <b>Eden</b>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am Christina Braithwhite, Devil Among Men.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Is how she unmakes and remakes herself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Biblical literalism is for fools, but if Original Sin is such a thing, then she wants to bear witness. Or, to participate.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The garden itself is like a set of a garden. A play, and if she looks close enough she’ll see the curtains on the other side. Everything is too lush, mismatched in their origins. Grand Amazonian ferns she saw at an exposition as a girl tower next to palm trees in the centre of an apple grove.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Though, the good book calls it an apple, earlier translations say ‘fruit’ or ‘fig’, apples themselves not growing in the cradle of the Mediterranean where Christ was, ostensibly from.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Such is the way with faith, falsehoods get integrated into tradition until it’s all some abstraction of the desires of men.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Men, like that no good, snivelling prick, Adam.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Given lordship over Eden by God because he was the favoured creation of the day. Human man. Somehow more perfect than Angel or Dog. Or woman, the most perfect creature in creation.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Of course her fantasy--godhood? Would cast Ruby in the role of manifest perfection. Eve with her glowing skin and her strong jaw.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s not the first time Christina’s followed her, unnoticed. Observing how Ruby adjusts to the (nude) role. She’s observing. The flora and fauna are docile. They lean down to feed at her hand, drawn to her just as much as The Adversary.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s a liberation to her own nudity, body a closer approximation of her own mental hermaphrodity. The Devil is both. Man and Woman. God and Beast. And, it’s with this godly beasthood that she stalks Eve, knowing the moment to strike and enjoying the tension of the hunt.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>An apple tree. One bearing a single fruit. Really, it’s God’s bait, Christina is just taking advantage of it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you going to come out now?” Eve asks, busy feeding a bird seeds from her hand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Of course she’d sense Christina following. It only feels appropriate to transform herself into a snake, lithe and white. Slipping down from between the boughs she catches the apple between her fangs, offering it up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby’s giving her that look. The one that’s two parts skeptical and one part flirtatious.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And what is this?” she asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s knowledge,” The Devil tells her, “A gift from God.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But, God gives all his gifts unto Adam,” she says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Devil smiles, “He has, because Adam is simple and cannot find the gifts that God hides from him. But, you are complex, and he knows that you can find his most hidden secrets.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So open and trusting is she, and so beautiful and shiny is the fruit, that her mouth waters. Knowledge. Sweetness. The Devil swallows hard, knowing that woman is at this moment, innocent, and shackled by it. She will accept what she is given, even if that is lesser. Even if it is unfair. And that is why The Devil must intervene.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s what you want, isn’t it?” The snake’s body transforms into a pale body. One Eve inspects in her curiosity, not quite like hers and not quite like Adam’s.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The fruit is so red against pale fingers. Eve wets her lips.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Go on, here, like this,” The Devil says, taking a bite for herself and offering the flesh from between her teeth to Eve. Eve hesitates, before leaning forward to brush her teeth against The Devil’s.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It snaps between Eve’s teeth and she feels its juices flood her mouth. Knowledge. Juices can flood north or south, and for the first time, she notices the curves and ridges of the creature’s body. Pale skin that smooths down into pink nipples, unlike her own black ones. Lower, there’s a soft curve to the creature’s belly, and a lush patch of light hair that blossoms into a rosy shaft. Eve knows not what to call it, only that she wants to call it hers. Wants to claim it somehow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The heat she feels creeping from her head to her toes seems to mirror in the flush of The Devil. Cheeks seem warmer, lips redder.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eve doesn’t know what to call their lips meeting.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It hasn’t been invented yet. We’re taking part in creation,” The Devil says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This must be how it happened, Christina reasons, cupping Ruby’s cheek and searching ever closer with her tongue. The Devil so loved Eve that he had to have her. Only, first she had to choose her own emancipation from of a life of a neutered doe.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eve likes it when their mouths join. She likes it when that mouth travels lower, when long fingers grab at her flesh. It both stokes and soothes the heat. Then there’s that thing, brushing up against her, making her clench, making her ache. She pulls the slimmer body to her, admiring the contrast between their skin, enjoying the weight of a body, and the soft hush of long hair.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Devil holds Eve as they take part in creation, making something new. Something that God cannot predict or control. Sex, the first time. It’s like their first time--which feels like eons ago, Ruby mounting her on the stairs. How it felt to flip their positions. How her thighs as just as welcoming now. The moss below is carpet-soft, unlike the stairs, but Christina holds Ruby’s head steady anyway.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They fit together. They do. Better than Eve ever could with Adam, or anyone else really. It’s solidified by a shared release brought on by fingers against a pearly clit and the fluttering of inner walls. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eve pants openly against The Devil’s forehead, before drawing her in for a hungry kiss.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s like a switch has been flipped and all of these known mysteries, the universe, her place in it, click back into place. Eve stiffens, pulling at The Devil’s lip with her teeth then leaning back far enough to look up through her eyelashes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Strange fantasy to pick for someone who’s been avoiding me,” she says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The reality check is enough to turn Christina’s soothing fingers into claws. The warmth of orgasm is quickly leaving her cheeks, but the attempt to disentangle is thwarted by Ruby’s thighs, holding her in place. Her cock twitches at the sensation.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Original Sin was my first thought it was more about--” Christina stops at Ruby’s look.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She tries again, “Taking part in creation.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So, you think this is how it happened?” Ruby asks, “Eve went and fucked the devil and damned humanity for all eternity?” She tilts her head, “Sex prevented us from eating the fruit of immortality?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina bares her teeth, eyes flitting skyward for God’s smiting hand, “I think the game was rigged. I don’t want to choose between immortality and love.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby laughs, running a hand down Christina’s bicep, “And now you don’t have to.”</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <b>Rome</b>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am Ruby, Supreme Empress.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rome, is somewhere they can be themselves. Uninterrupted. All that wanton lust for blood, decadence, and sex, is well-suited for the Second Triumvirate.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her subjects question not the colour of her skin or the legitimacy of her qualifications. They do not hide disgust into goblets when she kisses her lady’s pale hand. They are called The Sun and The Moon by some. Eclipsing each other in night and day. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Kill him,” Christina whispers into her ear.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He” is the crowd favourite gladiator. A peasant farmer who worked his way up through the Christians, and the lions, and everything else they’ve thrown at him. Those in the lowest seats see this man as a rope up for their own aspirations.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby laughs, snapping a grape between her teeth and offering a thumbs down for the man’s performance. His blood stains the stone to the cries of both his fans and his detractors. No one really cares once the blood starts spilling. They’re there to watch anyway. Not to look away from a man’s headless body dropping.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby used to look away. And, she does after a time, to see blue eyes seeking her out with endless hunger.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Later, that evening, she binds Christina with rope in their shared quarters, and considers breaking her in her passion.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She settles for drinking from a cut she makes below Christina’s ear instead. Close enough to kill, but light enough to merely sting.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rage passes between them in these sun-soaked days. Christina’s simmering resentment feeding Ruby’s own.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You don’t always have to be the one steering the magic,” Ruby snaps after a time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina doesn’t look up from combing her hair, “I know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They share a bed, each hiding a knife beneath their pillows. It’s when Ruby awakens to Christina straddling her, with needle in hand and eyes narrowed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby’s own hand snaps up, catching Christina’s pale throat, and feels the swallow against it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Look, Bitch. You can kill me, but we are tethered together. You will never be free of me. You will carry my body like a ball and chain for the rest of your unlife. Or, you can grow up, enjoy yourself, and be the willing viper in my bed.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina keeps very still, digesting this information. The battle of wills has always been their own coliseum. Christina often yields, getting her way just by bathing in Ruby’s radiance. Their mismatched affections have always been Ruby’s upper hand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But, as this all progresses, Ruby is finding it’s a harder hand to keep. Because, she looks up into dark lashes and a heaving pale chest and thinks only of an eternity of possessing this woman. The softening of her own expression is mirrored in Christina’s, and the needle drops, uselessly against the pillow. They kiss, as lovers, and as bound souls in their shared bed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby knows it’s real, and that she’s in so deep she can’t see the top of the well anymore. It happened naturally. Now, even in an orgy of the most beautiful slaves she’s ever seen, does she find herself drawn away from Christina’s eyes, her lips, her hips.</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <b>Pompeii</b>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am Christina Braithwhite, Witness to the End.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hell, she finds, is actually terrible.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Noxious gases, volcanic ash, and hot stone put their invulnerability to the test as they go running, hand in hand through the streets of Pompeii.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Rename yourself!” she cries to Ruby over the screams and the smoke.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fuck, I’m trying!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They travel time, and space. Making and unmaking man and monster alike. They watch empires crumble and decay. They wrestle power down the barrel of a gun. They sink ships meant to find new lands, preventing the American expansion.  They relish in their list of bourgeoise crimes before they are hauled off to the guillotine. They walk hand and hand through a dimension of horrors of flesh and eyeball. Death isn’t a first. Terror isn’t a first. It’s all about satiating that endless curiosity.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And, when they get bored of that they run a country bed and breakfast in Southern Wales. Getting up before the sun to bake, getting flour fight kisses and palm prints on each other’s jeans. Enjoying the first sunrises with scones, clotted cream, and jam.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The tether feels less like a leash and more like a safety net. No matter how far or how deep their adventuring takes them, it’s always together. Bound eternally.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The years-decades-centuries go by until not even those are firsts anymore.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>An emptiness grows, gnawing, and unspoken. Something shared. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I want to go to Chicago, where we can just hold hands as ourselves,” Ruby says wearily.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The date on a newspaper places them in 2012. Not the farthest they’ve jumped ahead. Christina wanted to see the deaths of the earth, and then the heat death of the known universe.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>2012 is normal. It’s a chilly spring day. The late Chicago spring where most people are still in parkas, avoiding piles of rapidly defrosting slush on the sidewalks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>People still take cash, but it’s less common now, Ruby finds, as she buys two coffees from a counter. One that has no whites and coloureds sides. The barista’s race is ambiguous, not a point for derision. The way she pinches her mouth reminds Ruby of Leti, and that gives her an unexpected twinge. Something like longing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina takes the coffee without a word and they walk, hand-in-hand despite feeling like the whole world is watching. Eternal, and ancient, but still very aware of the world they came from. They find a park bench that’s been dried out by the sun and sit there, knee to knee. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>For all their adventures, they are very small and insignificant in the shadow of a giant black arm. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s a first,” Christina huffs out a laugh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby blinks, then follows her gaze. To a pair of women just like them. One black, one white, kissing without any fear of who’s watching. Between them? A baby stroller.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It tugs on Ruby’s heart string and she knows it’s Christina doing the tugging, but God, she feels it too. Hundreds of lifetimes, and still missing so many firsts.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>First kicks, first laughs, first steps.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She doesn’t have to say it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neither of them do.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But, they both do, in sync, anyway, “I am yours.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And they return.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>November 6. 1955. </b>
</p><p>
  <span>Hippolyta says that time passes in that machine like water through a sieve. She says that’s it’s easy to get lost in all of it. Time and space happening.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There are infinite possibilities of places to be, but Ruby is not here. And, Leti is so sure that crazy white killed her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hippolyta by herself? That was dangerous enough. Even if Hippolyta is made of the strongest and smartest stuff.  But, Ruby? Getting all twisted up in Christina Braithwhite’s dark magic with nothing but power around them?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She prays to God every day. For her son to be born happy and healthy, and for the life of her sister, and for Tic.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When people ask about Ruby, Leti says that she’s not sure. That it’s not like her sister to just up and leave. Not when the world still needs her so badly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Especially Leti, whose body is getting used to the aches and pains of growing another life. And, whose house seems to a whack-a-mole game of fix-it projects. Endless repairs to occupy Tic’s furrowed brow. She just wishes The Book of Names had something for a crumbling foundation. At least with the newer, friendlier neighbourhood, keeping tenants is less of a problem. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She goes to church for peace of mind. She goes to church for forgiveness. She goes to church because even with a fount of magic at her fingertips, she’s still walking through the valley of the shadow with no hand to guide her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It is, to Leti’s surprise, to enter her church and find her sister at the centre of the usual throng of gossiping hens. Ruby looks radiant. Dressed better than Sunday best. Holding her left hand out for all to admire the massive ring on her finger.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Been in the family six generations,” she’s saying.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Leti swallows something that feels sticky and dark. And she storms down the aisle, feeling the crack of her own heels against the carpet. She’s not sure what she’s going to say to Ruby. Or how she’s going to say it. Her arms do the work, throwing them around her sister’s neck. She feels the way Ruby stiffens, then softens.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ruby, I was so worried! I though that terrible--” this is when Leti sees past Ruby to find a pale face sticking out of a high collar. A placid smile that she’s seen in both male and female.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good to see you, Leti,” William’s cool voice hisses into her ear. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>His hand goes to the small of Ruby’s waist and Ruby tips her head to give him (her) a slow kiss. Leti is at least, able to exchange loaded looks with a few of her friends. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby shares her pew, and Christina shares Ruby. And Leti thoroughly ignores the white hand comfortably resting on her sister’s thigh. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Even if she can feel the rest of the congregation’s eyes on them the entire time.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. 1965 Part 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>A trip to Detroit. A Drag Ball. A New Car. Some bending of the genders. Some Froot Loops. Daddy Issues. Lots of graphic cheek clapping.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Writing this fic while getting holes consistently blown in my canon ship that I don't understand why they don't want us to ship it what the fuck you gave them a love theme, Leticus didn't get a love theme what the fuck</p><p>Anyway, this is how I feel while writing this fic:<br/>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pS6cs1JvxU</p><p>Warnings for this one: meditations on consent and objectification, mentions of abusive parents, brief description of gore, lots of sex.<br/>Really, this chapter is tamer than Episode 8.</p><p>Shannon, if you're reading, this chapter contains white woman humiliation and I know you're into that.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p></p><div class="quoteDetails">
  <p></p>
  <div class="quoteText">
    <p>“I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: That I am nobody but myself.”<br/>― <span class="authorOrTitle"> Ralph Ellison,</span><span> Invisible Man<br/></span></p>
  </div>
  <div class="quoteText">
    <p> </p>
  </div>
  <div class="quoteText">
    <p>I fuck him like I miss him<br/>He-he just came out of prison<br/>Bitches-bitches be talkin' shit, but they ain't got a pot to piss in<br/>My-my name is Nicki M<br/>I'm in a sticky Benz<br/>That-that mean it's candy apple red, I'm Barbie, this is Ken<br/>That is a Fendi fact<br/>I'm with a hundred Macs<br/>Oh, this is custom made, Donatella sent me that</p>
  </div>
  <div class="quoteText">
    <p>― Nicki Minaj, Megatron</p>
  </div>
</div><p> </p><p>
  <b>Fall. 1965. Part 2.</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Being the eldest means, usually, being exempt from the kind of sibling rivalry shared between her boys. Ruby was already taking on the co-parent role from her mother when Leti was little. Still, there are little … snags in their relationship. Competitions. Jealousies.</p><p>A running one, is, of course, who has the better husband. Something Leti parades out whenever Atticus bothers to do something nice, like make her a birthday cake. It’s cute really, that Leti still sees it as a competition, and not her showing off her own participation medal while Ruby’s standing there with the gold cup.</p><p>Ruby’s usually nice enough to let it slide.</p><p>But, it’s three in the goddamn morning on the first day of her vacation when the phone rings. She pinches her nose as Christina works to untangle herself from their nest of sheets, groping blindly for the phone.</p><p>“‘llo?”</p><p>Years of practice have perfected her sleep husk to sound reasonably enough like a tired William Davenport--and it flares some heat in Ruby’s belly. Her plans were to save that for a morning victory lap or three before hitting the studio, but she can already see their week going up in flames.</p><p>Atticus’s voice comes through the phone. Ruby scoffs, rolling onto her side away from the conversation.</p><p>“Yes, you did wake me.”</p><p>There might be an apology on the other line.</p><p>“...So it just showed up at your house?”</p><p>A sigh.</p><p>“I’m assuming you’ve already touched it. Who did? Nevermind. Are they showing symptoms?”</p><p>Christina’s figure cuts a lean figure eight in the darkness. She’s bent at the waist, elbow to knee, and the stretch making the notches of her vertebrae stick out.</p><p>Ruby can hear the cogs in her wife’s brain working, albeit sleep-slowed. It’s enough of a head scratching problem that it’s got her sitting on the edge of the bed and reaching for her watch. It’s a dangerous start to ruining their vacation because Atticus is family. And, the virtue to combat her wife’s self-serving hedonism is an insane level of loyalty. Any time Tic so much has a sliver Christina comes running to make it better. </p><p>“Shit, Atticus, you have the book. Have you considered looking it up yourself?”</p><p>Ruby rolls back onto her other side, worming across the mattress to hug her wife’s waist, physically tethering her to the bed.</p><p>“I wanted a second opinion before trying anything. We did a bunch of tests, and he wasn’t possessed, but he looks strange,” Atticus says.</p><p>“Define strange? Is it another--”</p><p>“He’s all sticky like he’s made out of molasses or something.”</p><p>For fuck’s sake.</p><p>“And he seems alive? Try somewhere cold to flush out the source of the magic.”</p><p>Ruby grabs the phone before this can go any further, “Atticus, you’ve got a house full of magic users. You don’t need Christina to hold your hand. Now let me have my fucking vacation.”</p><p>And she hangs up.</p><p>Christina keeps her spot sitting on the edge of the bed, eyes luminous in the dark. She has that pinched look she gets whenever Ruby cracks the whip and she’s not sure if it’s time to be defensive or pliant. Ruby smoothes her palm over a thin ribcage, grazing a nipple with her thumb. She then presses a possessive kiss to Christina’s spine, right at the middle.</p><p>“You’d better not get out of this bed, Mrs. Baptiste, now come here and snuggle me.”</p><p>There’s no argument, just a skinny body moulding to Ruby’s under the covers. They fit like this. Christina’s hair is soft under Ruby’s chin, her own lips connecting with Ruby’s collar. One thousand (it’s actually closer to five hundred, because they’re impatient and they skipped the boring parts) of sharing a bed makes the shift of limb and lung a well-rehearsed dance.</p><p> </p><p>#</p><p> </p><p>She wants a song with some power. Some oomph. They keep giving her this doo-wop ballad bullshit. Lowering her voice, making it smaller, making it blend. She wants to sing something to properly dance to. Not playing fourth-fiddle for the No-Hit Supremes.</p><p>She’s Ruby fucking Baptiste.</p><p>Otis, the guy in the booth gives her a cold smile when she storms out of the booth after the fourth take.</p><p>She knows for a fact that she doesn’t hear the twiggy preteens they’ve got her singing with calling her ‘washed up’. She knows that for a fact, because then she’d have to assert herself and she has other plans for the evening.</p><p>Kell’s guys are sitting in a circle chatting when she comes out. They all stand at her approach. A good bunch, respectful, even a little playful.</p><p>“Mrs. Baptiste,” one says.</p><p>Ruby lights a cigarette, “Do any of you boys know where a black woman can buy a nice car?”</p><p>Yes, she could hire a man to get one for her, a white man, who the dealers will listen to. Ones who will believe he’s trustworthy just for being white and having a dick. </p><p>(Her wife has garages full of cars. The ones at the house get washed at least once a month, William standing out there sudsing them up himself because Christina’s a control freak about the wax job. Ruby’s not complaining, and neither are the women in the neighbourhood. Mr. Davenport with his wet forearms straining with each swipe of the sponge. She’d be jealous if he didn’t wash her with just the same care. Instead, she gets to be smug, standing out there on the porch, waving to her man while she wears his robe.) </p><p>The nice boy with the afro pick volunteers to drive her over to a lot. He knows a guy there. Real gearhead, can get her the skinny on any model and make.</p><p>Cars. American cars with their hard candy bodies. All on display, the top of the line of engineering.</p><p>She can tell the salesman recognizes her, because she’s spent her life under a magnifying glass when she goes shopping, but instead of telling her where the door is, he hangs back whispering with his coworkers.</p><p>“Need any help, Ma’am?” he approaches, playing dumb.</p><p>Ruby didn’t spend her early life sweeping up hair to not preen a little when she’s being seen as a star. </p><p>“I’m shopping for a car for my husband.”</p><p>His eyes drop to the Braithwhite family engagement ring that lives on her finger (and will until Thea needs it) and takes the fact in stride.</p><p>“What kind of man is your husband?” he asks, “The car should reflect the man driving it after all.”</p><p>Ruby smiles, good and slow, because that’s the right question to ask.</p><p>(She could answer with ‘conniving’ or ‘fucking weird’, but that’s not who Christina is behind the wheel. When Christina’s driving she’s this avenging goddess, driving her chariot to either destroy or defend.)</p><p>“If that’s so, I want a sexy car. Something with real power beneath the hood.”</p><p>The salesman (Marvin, like her brother, which she tells him) smiles at that.</p><p>“I know just the car.”</p><p>The car in question is just the car. A black body gleaming under the sun. Red seats and accents. Muscular cigarette box shape.</p><p>“Now, we’ve got the A, C, and K Code of these. No change in the looks, but what’s beneath the engine…” he opens the hood of the one nearest, “The K Code has the engine with more oomph. 271 Horsepower. If your man likes to go fast then--”</p><p>“I’ll take it,” Ruby says.</p><p>“Are you sure? We have some other cars that might tickle your fancy.”</p><p>“No, this is perfect. Now, how quickly can you have it sent to Chicago?”</p><p>She pays cash. With her own money. </p><p> </p><p>#</p><p> </p><p>“I wanna go out dancing,” Ruby says on day four.</p><p>“Okay,” Christina’s drying her hands as she comes out of the bathroom.</p><p>“What did you get up to today?” Ruby crosses and uncrosses her legs. Christina takes the invitation, mounting her wife’s lap. Her fingers find the soft curls at the middle of Ruby’s neck, scratching at them idly.</p><p>“I did some more research into the Detroit Lodge.”</p><p>Ruby scoffs, “Research. You mean stalking?”</p><p>Christina drops her jaw, keeping her lips closed, and cocks a brow. The expression of not actively disagreeing with the truth.</p><p>“They’re still in a froth because the idiots locked their totem of Yog-Sothoth in the Manoogian Mansion and they haven’t been able to retrieve it.”</p><p>Ruby scoffs, “And these fools have magic? Why not just use anything from teleportation to invisibility?”</p><p>“That’s what The Order is without The Book of Names. Just a bunch of irrelevant old men struggling to come up with a single spell worth using for a fast solution,” she says into Ruby’s hair. She feels the shudder of response and smirks.</p><p>“But you still want to steal their shit?” Ruby asks, looking at her through a curled lip and dark lashes.</p><p>Christina laughs, feeling her own lips pull into a smile Leti has told her is ‘creepy’, “It’s habit at this point. I’d rather collect all artifacts for our own private collection than leave them out in the world where someone might stumble on a way to actually use them.”</p><p>Ruby hums in agreement.</p><p>“You said you wanted to go out dancing,” Christina returns to the opening thought, “Who as?”</p><p>“You, and me. As us. They have bars here for--”</p><p>“Being gay. Yeah. Are you sure? A lot of queens know your music. Don’t want to start any rumours that our marriage is a sham.”</p><p>“My business is my business and they can listen to my music and stick out of it,” Ruby says with a concrete resolve. A resolve in Ruby Baptiste that did not exist, that first time in 1955, when she stared in shock at the bloodied mess of her lover. Man. Woman. Wherever the line falls.</p><p>But, one thousand (more like five hundred) years in a cosmic limbo does tend to smooth away some of those old fears. And 1965 is ten years safer than 1955.</p><p>Which means she can share a booth and a drink with her wife and shoot her the moon eyes she can usually only show William in public. They don’t get looks so much as glances. Christina’s being fucking weird about the sugar packets and how they’re organized and Ruby wonders, once again, what she sees in this fool. It’s distracting her from the sugar packets, she tells herself as her fingers pull at Christina’s.</p><p>“Hey,” she says.</p><p>Christina ducks her head, “Hi.”</p><p>“Buy me a drink, Stud?” Ruby tips her head and bats her lashes.</p><p>Christina ducks further into a pleased look, then straightens her posture to that of the room’s alpha. She barely moves a finger and the waitress is at their side.</p><p>“A top up for the lady,” she says, eyes fixed on Ruby’s lips.</p><p>Ruby smirks against the rim of her water.</p><p>They toast with the new drinks, “To ten years.”</p><p>“And to many more.”</p><p>“Do you know what I wish we’d done when we were on Earth 504?” Ruby says.</p><p>Christina cocks her head to listen, eyes laser focused on Ruby.</p><p>“I wish we had gone back to that first night. When you approached me,” Ruby says, fingering her stirring stick in the memory.</p><p> Christina doesn’t move, her perfect attention still somewhat intimidating.</p><p>“Sittin’ at that counter with Mr. Blue Eyes coming up to sit with me.”</p><p>Christina chews her lip, “If I had … If it was me asking you for a drink, would you have let me?”</p><p>Ruby answers immediately, “Not a chance in hell.”</p><p>“Ah.”</p><p>Ruby snatches her wife’s retreating hand and kisses her wedding ring, locking eyes, “That’s why I wish we had gone back. So we could try it again, with you as yourself, and me--”</p><p>“Shooting me down?”</p><p>Ruby laughs, “I do like to make you work for it. But, no, me seeing you as you are and not what I was afraid of.”</p><p>Christina’s mouth opens to ask follow-ups about that, but the lights go down and the music goes up. The ballroom fills with drag queens, like painted butterflies in their transformations. </p><p>They introduce themselves with names like, “Miss Betta James” and “Miss Kitty Hepburn”, but it’s “Miss Rosie Baptiste” that makes their necks snap in that direction. A full figured drag queen in Ruby’s rock and roll glam and current hair struts across the catwalk. Christina’s laughing like an idiot into her hand and Ruby can’t stop slapping her arm.</p><p>“Did you do this?!” she hisses.</p><p>“How could I have known?” Christina brays.</p><p>Ruby has to watch her impersonator pretend to sing <em> ‘He’s No Good’ </em>up on that stage through the gaps in her fingers. Christina’s cartoonish delight is a look usually reserved for well-executed spells, the most fucked up shit, and their childrens’ art.</p><p>She cackles.</p><p>She fucking cackles.</p><p>Ruby might kill her. If she doesn’t die of mortification on the spot.</p><p>Relief is the next queen’s showcase. Ruby takes to the reprieve with another drink, “You know, I’m beginning to think that maybe us queers don’t deserve rights.”</p><p>Christina laughs harder.</p><p>“You can shut the hell up, Christina Baptiste.”</p><p>“Did you see the eye thing? She did the eye thing.”</p><p>Ruby scoffs, eyes narrowed.</p><p>“Yes! That.”</p><p>(The eye thing, which one record executive told her was much too sexual to put onto the cover of her record. It’s signature now. Ruby Baptiste’s smoulder.)</p><p>“You know, I was really gonna fuck you in the bathrooms here.”</p><p>Christina stops.</p><p>Now she’s giving Ruby the glassy-eyed pleading look.</p><p>“But, no, if you’re gonna play--”</p><p>Christina’s hand covers hers, “You should punish me for misbehaving,” she says with the most grave voice.</p><p>Ruby pokes her lower lip with her tongue and says, “Fuck it.” And hauls them off to the ladies room. </p><p>Music and gin make her head throb as she bends Christina over a toilet and hitches up her dress.</p><p>“You naughty bitch,” she says, seeing her wife’s lack of underthings.</p><p>Christina turns her head, hiding how pleased she is with herself poorly, “I’ve been to gay bars before, and I’ve gone without panties before, but never at the same time. So, this is--”</p><p>“Your first time. Yeah, yeah.” Ruby rolls her eyes as she manhandles Christina’s hips into just the position she wants. A parting of the lips has her fingers stroking through hot slickness that makes her exhale.</p><p>“How the fuck do you work that big brain of yours if you’re always thinking with this?” Ruby pinches Christina’s clit, enjoying the little gasp it gets her.</p><p>Christina’s arms windmill, stretching to the walls of the stall instead.</p><p>“How many should we start with? Ten?” Ruby says, testing the skin of Christina’s ass with a palm.</p><p>“More,” Christina says.</p><p>“I’m gonna go hard, are you sure you want more than ten?”</p><p>“Make it twenty.”</p><p>Ruby smirks, “You are a freak.”</p><p>Christina’s sobbing by the tenth slap to her ass, face pressed against the wall and hips wiggling for more punishment. She’s so wet it’s running down her leg and it’s Ruby fighting her willpower now not to stop to clean up the mess with her tongue.</p><p>She comes at twenty, skinny back arching and voice high. Ruby pumps her fingers roughly into her wife, using her free hand to pull Christina closer and fingerfuck her mouth. It gets them close enough to whisper in her ear, “Gonna do this to you with my cock. Punish your ass and your pussy at the same time. Choke you with my dick.” </p><p>Christina sobs around her fingers, leaning back fully against Ruby’s chest.</p><p>There’s probably a line outside their stall, but that’s not going to slow their rutting. Ruby grins as she feels Christina’s second orgasm coming, and jerks her wife’s jaw into a searing kiss.</p><p>They avoid eye contact in the mirror as their wash their hands, noting the line that has appeared since they arrived. Then, they leave together hand and hand, and both chewing their lips.</p><p>The ballroom has erupted into dance in their absence. She sighs in relief at no longer have a doppelganger in the spotlight, and allows herself to be led to the dance floor by Christina.</p><p>“Is this adequate dancing?” she says against Ruby’s cheek. </p><p>“Only if you can keep up,” Ruby says, as <em> Jump in the Line </em>comes on.</p><p>She really is blessed to have married a white woman with enough rhythm to do the <em> Nitty Gritty </em> without donkey kicking anyone in her substantial height plus heels. </p><p>She’s been to safe havens all across history. Castle walls standing between here and annihilation. She’s sat at desert oases just to see if they were just like they are in the pictures.</p><p>This bar, gay bars in general, are like that. Oases from a world that would subdue them. The first she entered felt like a firing squad, but now it’s the only place where she feels as if she can hang up every defense of Ruby Baptiste. Black, bisexual, woman--here she is free. </p><p>She’s champagne giggly and exhausted, leaning against Christina like she’s sturdier than she is. Christina sways back against her, always so affectionate when she’s allowed to be.</p><p>Which makes Ruby frown in her meditations. She looks up at her wife and tugs on her sleeve.</p><p>“Hm?”</p><p>But a throng of dancers interrupt her thought. Among them is Rosie Baptiste, who locks eyes with Ruby and has a face journey of confusion-disbelief-delight-mortification. She covers her mouth before shrieking, “Oh my god!”</p><p>Tipsy and leaning on her wife is not how Ruby wants to have this interaction. She raises a few fingers in greeting before tucking Christina into an arm and leading her off.</p><p>“Not going to give her a critique of her performance?” Christina sing-songs.</p><p>“She doesn’t need to know she’s mediocre,” Ruby says.</p><p>Christina could probably drive a straight line while hallucinating, so despite being three sheets to the wind, she gets them back to the hotel.</p><p>“We should get one of these for the house,” is a sentence she struggles against her lisp (always stronger when drunk) to say as they both undress to shower.</p><p>“I like the tub,” Ruby replies. Tonight’s heavy earrings are deposited into their box, and Ruby rubs her lobes in apology.</p><p>“It’s great for quick washes, like after molting,” Christina says. She’s already nude and making a big lack of a deal about leaning her body across Ruby to grab a cotton pad for her smudged eyeliner. It’s when she starts resting her boobs on Ruby’s shoulder as she removes her make up that proves to be the last straw.</p><p>“What?” Christina asks innocently as Ruby meets her eyes in the mirror.</p><p>Ruby doesn’t break eye contact as she pinches a pink nipple. Christina just shudders, all soft angles in the cold air.</p><p>They rest their foreheads together under the shared spray despite the silk crinkle of Ruby’s showercap. She keeps her lashes low as she inspects the rivulets streaking across Christina’s Mark of Cain, then the speckles of water against a pale belly, jutting hips, and thin thighs. God, she’s so big and so small at the same time. Ruby has biceps thicker than her wife’s legs. Yet, Christina has this cache of surprising strength. Willpower, maybe.</p><p>Spidery fingers make harmless scratches on Ruby’s hips, requesting her attention.</p><p>“What were you going to say back at the bar?” Christina asks like it hasn’t been on her mind.</p><p>Ruby strokes a thumb across her wife’s cheek, “It’s gonna sound like a saving throw if I say it now.”</p><p>“Say it anyway.”</p><p>“I was thinking about the multiverses, the ones where you approached me as yourself, or not at all. And, I don’t want it any other way. I don’t want to be in the universe where we’re not here, and I’m not your wife.”</p><p>Which is how she gets her gangly woman to cry in relief at one in the morning in the shower.</p><p> </p><p>#</p><p> </p><p>Sometimes Christina wishes she had sacrificed Atticus for her own immortal gain. Not so much for the immortality anymore, as to just rid her of his bullshit.</p><p>The tableau of regret: Ruby, her lovely wife with her come-fuck-me squint and her delicious thighs, splayed out in nothing but a neglige and a challenging look. Ruby, with her perfect dark skin glowing in the hotel light. Ruby, who is already sans panties and pushing Christina’s head around with a foot. Ruby, who has cut a little nick into Christina’s thumb that she’s currently sucking blood from. Ruby, Ruby, Ruby, whose nipples threaten to spill out of satin and silk with every heave of her generous chest. A chest Christina has business investigating with her tongue.</p><p>Ruby, who got her album in the can last night and therefore is all Christina’s for the rest of their vacation. </p><p>This is when the phone rings.</p><p>“Ignore it,” Ruby husks. </p><p>Christina picks the phone up and hangs up immediately.</p><p>For three blissful minutes, she is kissing and sucking every inch of skin she can get her mouth on. She’s tasting the salt of her wife’s skin. She’s breathing in the distinct smell of Ruby’s sweat. She’s leaving bruises in the shape of her hands and mouth.</p><p>Then the phone rings again.</p><p>Christina’s too far gone, nipping at stretch marks above her wife’s womb, pushing a finger up and into her. Enjoying the wet suction for what must be the millionth time. Eyes lock, then lips lock, and they’re rocking together in that old perfect rhythm.</p><p>This is when a needle of pain stabs through her lower back. Christina yelps. Another shrill ring.</p><p>“Fuck’s sake,” she grabs the phone, “Something better be on fire.”</p><p>“Three burroughs of Chicago have been overrun by those slime motherfuckers. We need a nuclear option without setting off a bomb. Come home.” It’s Leti.</p><p>Ruby, beautiful Ruby’s head hits the pillow in exasperation, “Did you hear--”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p> </p><p>#</p><p> </p><p>Once upon a time, Christina’s greatest fear was that of failure. Failing her own expectations and the ghost of her father.</p><p>What a time that was.</p><p>Now she has real fears, like whatever it is Atticus (it might not be his fault, but he’s bearing the brunt of the blame) has let run rampant in Chicago finding its way into her home. She can’t protect her children from the horrors of society, but she she be able to protect them from the supernatural ones that fall much closer into her field of expertise.</p><p>Which is to say, they make it home in record time. </p><p>Yes, they’re supposed to be helping Tic and Leti a few burroughs over, but she needs to check. Needs to make sure.</p><p>“Hey, Will!” it’s her neighbour, Ted from across the street.</p><p>William flashes that pleasant smile, “Theodore.”</p><p>“They came by with some mail for you. Big package by the looks of it. Tried to put it on your porch, but they were having trouble getting it through the gate. Don’t know where it ended up, might wanna check with the postman.”</p><p>William’s great at smiling and nodding while Christina internally screams the word ‘fuck’. </p><p>Ruby’s at the steps when William comes loping up.</p><p>“Look out!” he grabs his wife protectively.</p><p>Ruby stumbles against his chest, her shoe hovering a slick dark puddle. One that has a flat edge where the house’s protective barrier begins.</p><p>“The fuck is that?” she yelps, pushing both of them back.</p><p>“They sent two packages,” William pants, both of them taking big steps back as the puddle wriggles towards them.</p><p>Ruby’s offensive magic is the better of the two of them, and her lips move automatically, summoning fire hotter than hell that makes the puddle sizzle and squeal.</p><p>“Gogogo,” William throws his jacket down at the flaming puddle and boosts Ruby across the gap. Back to the house and onto the steps. Once on the porch, they overlook the neighbourhood. Quiet. Other houses completely unaffected. Naturally, it doesn’t attack whites.</p><p>Once inside, he’s twisting around the bannister, “Diana! Kids?”</p><p>Ruby grips his wrist, mirroring his panic on her face.</p><p>“In here!” Diana calls from the kitchen.</p><p>They rush down the hall, finding the kitchen table a mess of drawings, and the smell of pasta on the pot. Children, one-two-three accounted for. Thea writing her name in the language of Adam with some concentration, Isaac leaning in his chair to watch TV from his seat, and Christopher gluing dried noodles to some paper. He’s closest, so he’s the one swept up in Christina’s arms. He squeals in a mixture of delight and annoyance.</p><p>“Daddy! My macaroni art!”</p><p>She sniffs the back of his head, finding the same comforting smell of sunshine and <em> boy </em>. A quick inspection of his face shows normalcy. Blue-green eyes. Uneven eyebrows. Ruby’s mouth and jaw. Messy black hair.</p><p>She’s behaving like a mad man, so she kisses his head as a justification before setting him down. Ruby’s got the older two under the light, doing her own check before pulling them to her breast.</p><p>“Mooommmm!” Isaac whines, still trying to see the TV.</p><p>“Everything okay?” Diana asks, detecting that it very much is not.</p><p>William checks the kitchen window, seeing more of those dark streaks testing the boundaries of the house’s protections. His jaw tightens.</p><p>“Can you keep an eye on the kids for just a bit longer? And don’t let them outside.”</p><p>Diana nods, face stiff in its wariness.</p><p>“Small complication,” that charming William smile does not work on her.</p><p>“Daddy I missed you,” Thea says.</p><p>He turns his body to pick up his eldest, brushing his nose against her ear, mouthing, <em> “we are under attack. </em>” to Diana.</p><p>They give the kids hugs and kisses before jumping the barrier line and heading for the South Side.</p><p> </p><p>#</p><p> </p><p>With enough time a person can get used to anything. Before Korea, his rage was a smokestack, just clenched hands and a bloodied tongue. His father once made him kill a rat with a hammer, to teach him about something … life probably. It twisted him into an ugly shadow of grief. Then, in Korea he did more than kill. He tortured and maimed. Acts that should have fractured his soul became background noise to the shit-shower-shave existence of downtime.</p><p>Ten years ago, the rumble of an engine and a flash of silver would have caused his skin to crawl. Today that tell-tale rumble cuts the strings of his terror. Salvation.</p><p>Christina-William’s hair is all fucked up as she exits the car and there’s a familiar angry set to Ruby’s jaw.</p><p>“What the hell is going on?” she demands.</p><p>“Well, we tried to tell you on the phone!” Atticus fires back.</p><p>“This is a declaration of war,” William says, striding past to join Leti at the book.</p><p>“What? Why would any of the other lodges pick now to go to war with us?” Atticus asks.</p><p>And he sees the ‘oh shit’ look that passes from William to Ruby. Of course, he should have known. Christina’s interest is much like her driving--one of reckless abandon flattening everything in her path. She’s mentioned <em> protecting themselves </em>from the other lodges, but Atticus has enough of a family dictionary to know that “protection” in this house always leads to murder.</p><p>“Do we know which lodge sent it?” William redirects the line of questioning with finesse Old George would be proud of.</p><p>“Preston Brooks from Portland Oregon,” Leti says, eyes returning to normal after scrying.</p><p>“Oregon?” Ruby asks.</p><p>William laughs humourlessly, “The Lodges must be desperate if they’re letting fucking backwoods Portland carry out hits at this point.”</p><p>“Then they’re scared of us,” Atticus says, standing shoulder to shoulder with William.</p><p>Leti nods, “Terrified of Chicago’s ‘Black Lodge’.”</p><p>William snorts, “Like we’re an organization instead of a dynasty.”</p><p>“Well, mafias typically mix both,” Atticus rubs the back of his neck. He’s been getting into organized crime fiction lately.</p><p>“We are not a mafia,” Ruby declares, squeezing her husband’s forearm as if a warning. He shoots her a toothy smile before returning to his thinking face. Christina’s neutral expression.</p><p>“So these black molasses things--”</p><p>“Tar People,” Atticus corrects, muscle jumping in his jaw.</p><p>“I’m getting real tired of having to fight racists with magic. Can’t we have magical battles with, I don’t know, Grey Wizards?” Leti folds and unfolds her arms.</p><p>“Or at the very least someone with some creativity,” William flips through the book then cross-references the map of Chicago on the table, “So you want to do protective points here, here, here, and here?”</p><p>“Already set it up. Pop’s there with some shogs to keep our foothold.”</p><p>“We can create a barrier to keep them infecting anyone else, but that doesn’t solve the problem of people walking around melting,” Leti says, “You’re the healing magic expert, we were hoping you might have an idea.”</p><p>William pokes his cheek with his tongue. He flips through the book, muttering to himself in the language of Adam. Ruby palms the sweat stain on his back before leaving for the kitchen to check on George.</p><p>“I could have been thinking of this on the drive back,” Christina huffs in irritation.</p><p>“Well, you wouldn’t pick up the phone,” Leti fires back.</p><p>William’s doing the limp wristed pecking hands that means Christina’s pissed, “Forgive me. Have I not come running every time you have called me since we met? Have I not been at your beck and call for every magical boo-boo, no matter how small? And I do, because that’s what family does. But, just for one week, I wanted you to be able to handle things without me.”</p><p>She storms off up the stairs. Atticus is standing there with his hands on his hips, seeing a window into another life down the hall, where Ruby is calmly teaching George the recipe for Grandma Eloise’s peanut butter cookies. Unconcerned by her wife’s tantrum. He’s stuck between action and inaction. That planning stage when everything is hinged on one book they don’t have--which is Christina’s brain in this case. Leti pushes him in the back until he’s walking down the hall, and then even further, until he’s flattening cookies with a fork to give them that crosshatch design.</p><p>Christina returns, with a non-apology and a plan, “It’s going to cost us all of our Illinois Shoggoths…”</p><p> </p><p>#</p><p>She doesn’t want the key to the city, but she’s pretty sure she’s earned it at this point. Through the well-oiled machine of the ‘Black Lodge’ working together, they managed to banish the curse. Fixing the most affected citizens is, however, a lost cause. Ninety-nine percent is good odds. It’s just not everyone.</p><p>And she doesn’t care. She did her job.</p><p>She doesn’t care and she certainly doesn’t see the liquified bodies when she closes her eyes.</p><p>The force of the spell tore her right out of William, which is why she’s freshly bathed and sitting on the couch in one of Leti’s shirts, and a pair of Tic’s pants. </p><p>They really need to dust the ceiling. She’s pretty sure she sees a human face gathering in the cobwebs. Should probably tell Leti about that if she’s not already aware.</p><p>A creak of floorboards announces company, but she’s too exhausted to turn her head. The exhaustion isn’t enough to curb the budding smirk.</p><p>Atticus can peacock around all he likes. He can fill spaces with his loud voice and his big body to make him seem scarier than he is. He’s getting good at playing a grown up, but even having a child hasn’t made him less of one. Three-hundred and seventy-five days. That was their age difference. The number of rotations around the sun Christina had before Atticus was born on June 27, 1931. Yes, it’s something she has lorded over ever since. Not even one thousand years of wisdom can free her from the pettiness. He is the younger, and therefore he is the baby brother. (A dynamic she understands so much better now that she has her own boys.)</p><p>And Tic can grumble and disagree, but here he is, pressing his forehead to her shoulder. There’s the moment of hesitation, awaiting her permission while he’s bent at the waist. Her hand comes to cup his head, stroking his hair. Tic crawls onto her lap. His knees bracket her legs, though he’s careful not to crush her. They must look comical. Christina tucks her hands under his arms, clinging to his back. Her own forehead falls to his shoulder. The contact makes her heart work double-time. Samuel Braithwhite gave her head a brush with his palm maybe once in a blue moon. Touch, unlike scorn, wasn’t freely given.</p><p>“You smell like pennies” Tic mumbles after a time.</p><p>The comment hits like a slap to the face. She pulls back, unable to hide her offense.</p><p>“Well, you reek of man sweat!”</p><p>Laughter from the doorway has the two of them turning to look. Leti stands there with a camera and a smile, Ruby behind her with that soft look that always pours into Christina’s cracks and strengthens them.</p><p>“This is gonna be a good one,” Leti says, tapping the camera.</p><p> </p><p>#</p><p> </p><p>While the mid-week break from school is neat, the world feels all topsy-turvy. For example, it’s Thursday and Daddy’s sitting on the couch with them watching Road Runner while he gives Thea braids. His own long hair is lifeless and his eyes are huge and he’s not even wearing make up, just mechanically going between the comb and handfuls of cereal from the box.</p><p>It would be awesome if it weren’t scary.</p><p>Dads usually only act like that when they lose jobs or have divorces.</p><p>“Is Mama okay?” Isaac broaches the subject lightly.</p><p>“She’s just tired.”</p><p>Moms are only “just tired” when they’re mad at their husbands. Isaac swallows hard, feeling his shoulders go up.</p><p>Oh God.</p><p>Thea seems unconcerned as Dad starts a new line of braids. Christopher’s fitting Froot Loops onto the tips of his fingers and eating them off.</p><p>Suddenly, cereal turns to ash in his mouth, and if this is the premonition of divorce then he needs some kind of divine intervention. He can’t live like this.</p><p> </p><p>#</p><p> </p><p>It’s different. Different than Dell, and different than Grace. Not just the parts, but knowing what to do with them. She knows how to walk like a woman. She can swing her hips and bat her lashes. A man is different. Back straight, wrists stiff.</p><p>And then there’s the dick.</p><p>It’s not like it’s her first time seeing a penis. She took baths with Marvin as a kid. Her spouse has a dick about half the time. She’s changed her sons diapers. Christopher only started wearing pants around the house after the cook complained.</p><p>It’s a lot different having one dangling between her legs.</p><p>Devon’s body is thinner than hers, Dell’s, or even Grace’s. The distribution of muscle is different, a marbled stomach, big shoulders, and hard thighs. He’s got black nipples like hers, and hair the same texture. Tight black curls that go in a line from her, his, stomach, and coat his butt and thighs. So much hair. How the fuck is William so hairless? His butt is as smooth as Christina’s. Devon--Ruby’s ass sticks out more, but is distinctly fuzzy.</p><p>Just admiring makes her dick stir, and it makes Ruby laugh.</p><p>Getting hard for her own damn reflection. And, Christina said it would require some practice to get the engine working. But, it was probably harder for Chris on account of the gay thing.</p><p>Which makes her wilt.</p><p>Her marriage is built on a lot. A lot of trust, a lot of experience, and a lot of love. But, at its foundation, Ruby’s wish is Christina’s command.</p><p>The fact of the matter is, she’s wondering about whether or not Christina actually wants this.</p><p>Christina who is downstairs watching the kids while Ruby is practicing at being a man alone, because the last thing her children need after a slime person pandemic, is to see a strange black man in the house.</p><p>Let alone one jerking off while sniffing their father’s underwear.</p><p>(That she does have permission for. Christina even got all shark-eyed, the way she does, when Ruby asked before stumbling downstairs like a foal.)</p><p>“What’s your name gonna be?” she asked last night, copy of Dune spread out over her lap.</p><p>“Mm?” Ruby.</p><p>“When you’re a man. Or are you just going to be Ruby in both?”</p><p>That’s the question that’s bouncing around in her head. Is this body an extension of herself or is it a sex toy to liven things up in the bedroom? The latter thought makes her recoil. It makes her feel like the dissatisfied harpies of Marshall Fields, viewing black men as a dirty secret to stick between their legs. A safari dildo.</p><p>That’s not what this is.</p><p>It can’t be just that. </p><p>No, she’s certainly thought about how things would be different if she was a man. How she’d be able to fuck around before marriage and not get told to keep her legs shut. How she’d be able to play late shows without keeping a gun in her bag. Or how she’d be able to just exist in spaces without shoulder-checking. The way men would respect her, and not the man she’s attached to.</p><p>But, now that she’s in a man’s skin, being asked to name herself (and she’s gotten pretty good at naming herself after a few rounds over a thousand years) she freezes.</p><p>What is his name?</p><p>If Ruby was born a man. If she was the eldest son of Eloise Baptiste. Would she be put in charge of cooking and cleaning so early, or would she get to be a boy longer?</p><p>Would Daddy have stayed?</p><p>Marcel Dandridge was a solid man. He worked hard to put food on the table. He wanted a wife who would cook and clean and leave the devil magic behind.</p><p>But, Mama was a pragmatist, and someone had to chip in if money was tight that month.</p><p>And, when she was able to materialize money, even after “leaving that life behind her” Daddy got suspicious of the money’s origins.</p><p>He left after Marvin was born, insisting the baby belonged to whatever sugar daddy Mama had.</p><p>Ruby doesn’t remember much about her father, not anymore. When she remembers his face, she just fills it in with Marvin’s. All that she really has left of the man is a temper, and a flinch at the sound of slamming doors.</p><p>Don Lewis didn’t stick around as long as Daddy, but she doesn’t think she’ll ever forget his weasley face and strong cologne. Leti comes by grifting honestly. Mama and Don fell in love because they were the best cons the other had met. The bar was low. Don had a dozen schemes cooking at a time. Always promised to take them all to Florida--he had big prospects in Florida. He was gonna take the whole family to Steeplechase Park. He was gonna get Leti’s perfect face on ads for Cream of Wheat.</p><p>Don Lewis is either spinning that shit somewhere else, in prison, or dead. Leti claims she hasn’t heard from him in over a decade, which just means that he stopped giving her money.</p><p>No, like most kids on her block, she grew up looking at George Freeman as a father figure. He’s a good man to model herself after. Soft-spoken, firm, supportive, and absent.</p><p>As a man, would Ruby be a musician on the road? Touring so often she becomes more and more of a stranger to her kids. Is that what she’s doing now? Upstairs naked in the mirror while they watch cartoons with Christina downstairs. Is emotional absence a rung on the ladder for physical absence?</p><p>What kind of father is he?</p><p>William’s a present father. He never raises his voice or his hand. He can listen to Christopher babble without tuning it out. He’s completely wrapped around Thea’s little finger. And, he’ll play with the kids with the boundless energy of a golden lab. It’s Christina paying the price. Writing cheques her body can’t cash, and turning into a shaking little thing at night for it.</p><p>Ruby can cook just about anything. She can hit a high note, and a baseball out of a park. Every time. She taught Marvin, and Leti how to tie their sneakers, and how to make a spit drip. And, she knows that if she checks Leti’s shoes they’ll still have those double knots. Ruby can fire a gun, and she can climb a fence. She could be a poker dealer in Vegas with how good she is at dealing cards.</p><p>Is that what he’d do? Be a road musician gambling for a little pocket change at night? Would he make it to Vegas, skirting the lines of Jim Crow during his twenties--time Ruby spent cleaning houses on the North Side of Chicago?</p><p>Would he take a different woman--or man, into his bed every night? Would he make it big, and play up the sissy angle like Little Richard, to make himself less scary to white folks?</p><p>Would Mr. Baptiste give a shit about a job at Marshall Fields and then spill his sorrows over gin to a mysterious white stranger?</p><p>Even at Sammy’s Bar, surely, he wouldn’t be so bold as to go home with William.</p><p>Ruby’s cock twitches. That night. That first night, the one where William looked at her like a goddess as he sucked the blood from her hand. The way she mounted him, then he her. But, as a man. William’s head going between Mr. Baptiste’s legs. How it’d feel, stretched out on those stairs. Spreading his legs and letting that pink cock inside. William’s hand still cushioning his head, still pumping into him so good.</p><p>Ruby bites her free hand, the one not stroking her way through this fantasy. William’s figure shifts in smoke to Christina’s, their first time, Grace’s blood tacky on Ruby’s fingers, and then seeing Christina. Still looking at Ruby like she was divine, and still taking those bloody digits into her mouth. How Ruby chased the blood staining Christina’s lip. The pressure of Christina’s shaking hands and knees as she straddled her in the car. The same tableau but with muscular, hairy thighs. Stiff and strong as a rod.</p><p>Rod.</p><p>He likes it. Rod. Unyielding, and uninterrupted.</p><p>Rodney Baptiste.</p><p>Knock. Knock.</p><p>Rodney makes a noise and darts behind the privacy screen to grab a robe.</p><p>“Mom! Are you and Dad having a fight?” it’s Isaac.</p><p>Fuck. Devon’s voice--Rodney’s voice is much different than her own. She goes high and what comes out is embarrassing.</p><p>“Of course not, I’m just not feeling well!” a cough helps sell it. Sounding like a fucking cartoon character sells it.</p><p>“Okay. Do you want some tea?” he asks.</p><p>Such a sensitive boy.</p><p>“Thank you, Baby. I’ll be down in a bit. Mind your father.”</p><p>“He’s eating Froot Loops, Mom. From the box.”</p><p>“Hilde didn’t come in?” her tone of voice becomes enough her own that not even the different vocal chords can mask it.</p><p>“Dad said something about trouble with the buses. ... Can we order pizza?”</p><p> </p><p>#</p><p> </p><p>Letitia Lewis has given a lot up for God since she was reborn. Lying (mostly), stealing (when necessary), and most definitely manipulating. One thing she cannot give up, no matter who asks it of her, is cahootin’. Especially when the cahooting in question involves a retribution that will be swift and brutal to those who burn crosses. These fuckers came for her family. At her house.</p><p>No, no, they have to know the harsh slap of the angry hand of God.</p><p>And, she may have reservations about the white devil her sister allowed into her home, and her bed, and their church, but she has no doubts about Christina’s ability to smite those who would harm her children.</p><p>Which is why they’re in her basement with the shriveled up body of some god child and a pitcher of water.</p><p>“Once hydrated, the infant Yog-Sothoth will grow to maturation, and based on the reports in the files I ‘borrowed’ from Miskatonic,” Christina pauses to make a face about her Alma Mater, “It will be entirely invisible to human eyes.”</p><p>“So, like a hurricane you can’t see?” Leti says.</p><p>Christina nods.</p><p>“Okay, so we just gotta make sure this thing doesn’t fall in the water until after they’ve opened it.”</p><p>“The mechanism should be simple enough,” Christina demonstrates. She opens the box and the apple she’s put inside splashes into the puddle of water below. Leti takes the apple, wipes it off her shirt, and takes a bite of it.</p><p>“So, if you’ve got it figured out, what do you need me for?”</p><p>“I need you to give it the psychic signature of the Detroit Lodge.”</p><p>Leti smirks, drumming her fingers on the workbench as she considers it, “Thought you said Portland was a bunch of backwater idiots who never even stood in the same room as Titus, let alone the Book of Names.”</p><p>“I stand by it. But, the spell they sent wasn’t small. They might have someone with actual talent--or just asked the San Francisco Lodge for help, which seems more likely. I don’t have sources to verify either right now.”</p><p>“Will they really believe it’s Detroit starting a gang war if we’re the ones who have real beef with them?”</p><p>Christina shrugs with her whole body, leaning forward on her elbows, “It doesn’t really matter. Blame will be tossed around for the damages regardless. It serves to shake the house of cards. And, if it covers our own tracks, then all the better.”</p><p>“Alright, give me what you have on the Detroit Lodge.”</p><p>Leaving a psychic signature is like making an imaginary movie. Telling a lark through words, flashes of images, and sounds. It needs to be vivid enough to be convincing, but vague enough to mimic the human memory. She always throws in some monotonous detail for that like taking a cab or buying a newspaper. Adds to the authenticity of it.</p><p>When she’s done pouring images from her brain into the postage stamp, Leti sighs and rubs her temples.</p><p>“You good?” Christina asks.</p><p>“Yeah. Just kind wish I could be there to see it.”</p><p>“Oh,” Christina’s eyes go comically wide and she wags a finger as she goes through her notes, pausing on a page with a big eye. “I’ve never experimented with scrying this far, but--”</p><p>Leti bumps her out of the way, “Sit your skinny ass down and watch the master work.”</p><p> </p><p>#</p><p> </p><p>Ruby hasn’t felt nervous in front of her wife in at least three centuries, probably more. Unconditional love will do that to you.</p><p>Rodney, on the other hand, has reason to be nervous. Despite assurances, there’s still this nagging fear that it’s not what Christina wants.</p><p>(“Ruby, our first commandment is do whatever the fuck you want.”</p><p>“Yes, but I’m not going to do what I want <em> to you </em> without you saying so.”</p><p>“That didn’t stop you in Venice.”</p><p>“Because I trusted you to stop me if I went too far.”</p><p>“So trust me now.”)</p><p>She should, but even a marriage like theirs is one of compromise.</p><p>With a deep breath, Rodney Baptiste arrives for his grand reveal. Wearing nothing but Christina’s robe and a pair of silk boxers, he’s greeted by the sight of his wife, tucked against the pillows in angelic white lace.</p><p>Oh.</p><p>Christina’s eyes dart southward and she gulps. That good gulp. The one she makes when Ruby wears low-cut dresses.</p><p>Feeling shy, but challenged, Rodney drops the robe, giving Christina free reign to stare.</p><p>She pushes herself up to her knees wearing her scholarly interest like an accessory. Ruby’s not modest, and has struck a pose when caught in Christina’s interest. Why should Rodney be any different? He flexes everything he can. All Mr. Charles Atlas. </p><p>Christina’s walking on her knees to the edge of the bed and Rodney meets her in the middle, letting her hands explore. Man or woman, her hands immediately gravitate to his chest. He laughs, low in his stomach, then groans as she rubs his nipples.</p><p>“Hello,” is all he can think to say. His cheeks heat up in embarrassment. The cock-eyed delight from Christina is another brick in that wall.</p><p>She brushes her fingers down the panes of his stomach, lightly by the tips, before pressing a palm to the heat of his stomach.</p><p>“Hello, what’s your name?” she asks, hand dangling by the wrist just out of reach from the tent in his boxers.</p><p>“Rodney, Rodney Baptiste,” he says, giving her the eyes. Those same ones from their first night.</p><p>“I’m Christina Braithwhite, and I don’t usually do things like this.”</p><p>He snorts, getting close enough to speak against her mouth, “Right. Because there’s another reason you white sluts come to the dark side.”</p><p>She shivers at the word slut, and drops her jaw behind pursed lips. Guilty and caught.</p><p>A long finger touching the tip of his dick has his own jaw dropping. Miss Braithwhite takes that opening to kiss him. Her lips are soft against his upper lip, then his lower, before dragging the meat of it between her teeth.</p><p>Cold air greets his cock as Christina extracts it from his boxers. Yes, her hand does feel better than his, especially that swirl she’s doing around the head with her thumb. Rodney smirks against Christina’s mouth because <em> she taught her that </em>.</p><p>Christina stops kissing him sudden enough to make Rodney blink. Then he’s looking down at her as she--holy shit.</p><p>She kissed it.</p><p>Now she’s flicking her tongue against the tip and smirking.</p><p>“What?” he asks, pushing a hand through her hair.</p><p>“You taste like my wife,” she says before taking him in her mouth.</p><p>“Fucking dirty bitch,” he says on an exhale.</p><p>She’s had Christina’s tongue as far in her pussy as it can go, and she’s had those perfect lips wrapped around her clit, but god damn, getting her dick sucked is a whole other level. There’s so much to get warm and wet. Tongue and lips, and just the edges of teeth. She wants to do this for hours, but her issue with the new equipment might be over-excitement rather than a lack of it, so she slows down, and withdraws her dick to rest it on Christina’s face.</p><p>“What are you doing?” she breaks character.</p><p>“Admiring the view,” Rodney replies, then reaches forward to slap Christina’s ass. She flinches into the strike rather than away.</p><p>“C’mere,” he says, but manhandles her anyway. His fingers push past the seam of her panties, and then his eyebrows raise.</p><p>“Shit, you’re soaked.”</p><p>Like, drenched.</p><p>Last time Christina was this wet she was going to town on Ruby’s pregnancy tits. There’s zero resistance to two fingers.</p><p>“So easy,” Rodney groans.</p><p>Christina blushes and nods.</p><p>Ruby wants to fuck her wife every which way, but which way first?</p><p>Can’t go wrong with the basics, she decides, pulling Christina’s panties down, and positioning herself between spread legs. Rodney rubs those thin thighs reassuringly.</p><p>“I thought you were the kind of man who took what he wanted,” Christina says, raising her chin in challenge.</p><p>“I know you’re the kind of slut who needs to make a whole ‘do about everything,” Rodney says, before jerking her closer to rub his cock against her clit. They both gasp.</p><p>“Ruby,” Christina moans.</p><p>“Yes, Baby?”</p><p>“Please,” those pleading glassy eyes.</p><p>Maybe it’s not just Christina who can’t say no anymore.</p><p>Pushing into her is like having a sudden understanding of the Rosetta Stone. Men. All men. Want this. All the time. And, fuck, she can see why.</p><p>It’s hot.</p><p>And wet.</p><p>So fucking wet that Rodney can feel a string of cum dribble from Christina’s pussy between them. </p><p>“Shit,” he says.</p><p>Christina’s gasping, head thrown back.</p><p>She’s too far away. Even here. Even now, when they’re closer than they’ve ever been. Well, on Ruby’s side.</p><p>Rodney gathers up Christina’s limbs and cocoons himself in them, connecting their lips because--<em> closer, closer. </em> In and out, and each thrust in is so rapturous he never wants to leave, then the stroke out with that sweet squeeze. She’s squeezing him. Because she likes it. Her legs wrapped around his hips keep him from pulling away too far. He leans up, just to lick her mouth and tear the white lace away from her breasts so they can freely bounce against his chest.</p><p>It’s all too amazing, and without meaning to, he drives himself off that cliff, thrusting fast and hard and stopping, to spill his seed inside.</p><p>Christina’s panting against his mouth, and he knows she hasn’t finished yet by the way she’s milking him. Ruby’s no slouch, so the hand that moves between them knows just how to stroke to get that cute high moan.</p><p>“I feel like a teenaged boy,” Rodney groans, rolling onto his back and covering his face with a hand.</p><p>Christina laughs and removes the hand, following him to a cuddle, “Four minutes ain’t bad for your first time.”</p><p>“I’d gotten it up to ten!”</p><p>“Self-love ain’t the same thing, Honey,” Christina says in an accent closer to Ruby’s.</p><p>“Don’t patronize me.”</p><p>“Do you know how much practice I had to do to build up that stamina? And even then, I almost came right away on our first night.”</p><p>Rodney gives her a withering look, “Our first night? When you fucked me through a good three orgasms before your own?”</p><p>“Thinking about baseball.”</p><p>“Right.”</p><p>Her forearm is resting on his chest and she’s looking at him from beneath her lashes.</p><p>“So, Rodney?”</p><p>“Rod.”</p><p>“It sure is,” Christina taps the spot above Rodney’s softening cock.</p><p>Ruby squints at her before darting forward with a sweet kiss.</p><p>Christina hums into it softly.</p><p>It’s a shared instinct to bump and nuzzle noses when they pull away.</p><p>“Thank you for the anniversary present. I love it.”</p><p>“Mmhm. The car was a surprise. I think I’ll use it to drive the children to school.”</p><p>Rodney starts snickering.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“So, I changed the theme of this anniversary to Black Mustang, and I wanted to make sure to have one I knew you’d enjoy riding <em> for sure </em>.”</p><p>Christina covers her face with her hands.</p><p> </p><p>#</p><p> </p><p>The map led to a hollowed out book in Daddy's study, and that had another note. The kind of puzzle he makes her solve in church. That took a day, before leading her to the next clue. A box in a tree out in the backyard. One she had to fight an owl for. Even that treasure was just another clue leading to the next. The excitement for the score outweighs the disappointment. The next clue can only be found using that invisible ink she begged Daddy to get her, and the map it offers isn't one of their house. </p><p>It's Aunt Leti's. </p><p>Up, up all the stairs and into the attic, she finds the treasure hidden behind the eye of a medical dummy. </p><p>A necklace. A plain one with a simple Gold charm of a horned head. Like the burn Daddy has on his chest. </p><p>The words attached read, "to wear me is to be free of pain."</p><p>Followed by a postscript. </p><p>"Don't tell your mother."</p><p> </p><p>#</p><p> </p><p>Halloween comes. Despite the viral outbreak of unknown origin. And with it comes their front lawn offending the neighbours delicate sensibilities with the whole Beistle catalogue spilled across it. Her wife, ghoul that she is, always hides at least one real dismembered limb among the decorations for authenticity.</p><p>They leave the butler (James) to give out candy, taking the kids trick or treating on the South Side with George.</p><p>That was the plan. They take the kids, Tic and Leti give out candy.</p><p>Except when they roll up to the curb in their Addams Family attire, George sprints from the porch to meet them.</p><p>“Hey! Let’s go.”</p><p>William and Ruby exchange a look. This is when they hear the raised voices coming from the house.</p><p>“That can’t be good for keeping tenants,” William says lightly.</p><p>Ruby scoffs.</p><p>The door slams and there appears Atticus, not dressed for the occasion at all and at a proper steam.</p><p>“I’ll take Leti,” Ruby says with a sigh.</p><p>“We’ll have to go out and summon the dark forces together later tonight,” William rasps.</p><p>The good-bye kiss they share is inappropriate. Ruby nipping William’s lip in farewell before sashaying up the walkway. He stares after her, lovestruck. It takes a cranky Atticus shouldering by to free him from his reverie.</p><p> </p><p>#</p><p> </p><p>“You gonna talk about it?” Ruby asks.</p><p>Leti’s pretty happy making as much noise in the kitchen as she can, so Ruby ignores that mess and provides candy to the endless stream of children coming up the walk.</p><p>“Oh my goodness, great costume! Happy Halloween!” It’s on autopilot at this point now.</p><p>“Oh, and what are you supposed to be?”</p><p>“A mouse.”</p><p>“A mouse? Oh I see the little ears and tail. That’s adorable. Here you go, Happy Halloween.”</p><p>It takes about half an hour for Leti to reappear with poorly concealed tear tracks and a glass of something alcoholic.</p><p>Ruby covers this with a smile, “Great, you can greet this kids here while I restock the candy.”</p><p>But the numbers are thinning, so they’re able to sit in the living room with the bowl and the TV on.</p><p>“Do you and Christina ever just … have the same fight over and over again and the result never changes?” Leti asks.</p><p>Ruby pops a candy corn between her teeth, “Not really.”</p><p>Leti tchs and takes a sip of her drink.</p><p>“Sure, we have our squabbles about things like the kids’ education, and magic, but even when we fight we both listen and learn.”</p><p>“Some days I’m thinking maybe I should’ve married a woman myself. Lord knows men ain’t worth half the trouble they seem to bring around.”</p><p>Ruby holds her tongue about the trouble Leti brings around because she’s making such good progress on the other points.</p><p>“Tic running around without telling you what he’s doing again?”</p><p>“Just found out he’s got plans to go to Europe to investigate some magic book he thinks is in Germany. Already bought a ticket, didn’t tell me shit.”</p><p>Ruby makes a face.</p><p>The doorbell rings and she hops up to deal with that first. Mercifully saved by the bell.</p><p>“Trick or treat!”</p><p>When Ruby returns she finds Leti staring at the ceiling, “Hey, Ruby, come here. Does that look like a human face to you?”</p><p>#</p><p> </p><p>It’s like a second honeymoon period.</p><p>Just smelling Christina’s cologne is enough to get Ruby wet these days. Or, to get Rod hard. Mornings used to be William pounding Ruby against whatever furniture was closest first thing in the morning, now it’s a race to see who can put their dick on first.</p><p>Except, getting there at the same time opens a whole new door.</p><p>Sodomy is a sin, according to the Bible. One of those big ones where they tell you two men so much as holding hands is ringing The Devil’s doorbell.</p><p>Well, Ruby married The Devil, and she really loves ringing his doorbell first thing in the morning.</p><p>William, hair fluffed up and eyes wild as Rodney lubes him up. Or, vice verse some mornings, because they’re both too hedonistic to get caught up in Top-Bottom politics. If the ass is ready and the dick is ready and they’re both revved up, then who cares what goes where?</p><p>And, Ruby loves that even this far into their relationship, she’s discovering new noises from William and Christina. The pitiful feminine moan William makes when Rodney’s thrusting right against his prostate. </p><p>Kissing as men is different too, they both have bristly faces and thinner lips. Christina still kisses Ruby like a drowning woman searching for air. Ruby still loves to count teeth with her tongue.</p><p>Both wearing their man suits means it goes by a lot faster too. William cleans off before stepping into his pants and checking the time, “Shit almost late.”</p><p>Rodney gets up to embrace him, adjusting his boxers and not much else. He enjoys the longing look William gives him and the bed, “I really have to go.”</p><p>“Go, mould young minds,” Rodney kisses like his wife, Ruby needing to switch bodies anyway.</p><p>“See you tonight,” William presses a peck to Rodney’s cheek.</p><p>“Hey, Baby,” that blonde head turns in question as he’s half-way out the door.</p><p>“Yes?”</p><p>“I love you.”</p><p> </p><p>#</p><p> </p><p>There’s an apple on his desk. Bad sign.</p><p>William doesn’t touch it. Doesn’t acknowledge it as he goes through the lesson. He teaches the significance of lymph nodes as a cleaning system for the body, and what inflammation of them means. He doesn’t even assign that much homework because Thanksgiving is coming up and he knows he won’t get many completed assignments.</p><p>After the lesson, fucking Jocelyn Hill is there again.</p><p>“Hi Professor, I don’t know if you saw, but someone left you an apple,” she says.</p><p>He turns slowly, schooling his features, “Yes, me and Earl the janitor, it’s a game we play. We hide apples on each other and then leave them on this desk for the other person to hide.”</p><p>She bites her lip, and now she’s going to have to confess it was her to contradict the story.</p><p>“I, um, wanted to return your book. It was really informative and helped with my anatomical knowledge. With the move to organs, I was wondering if you had any extra time for some of the circulatory systems.”</p><p>William exhales through his nose with Christina’s frustrations. <em> Enough with the doe eyed virgin act, Josie, just ask to suck my cock. </em></p><p>“That’s jumping ahead, Miss Hill. I assure you we will have ample study time in class.”</p><p>“Yes, I just.”</p><p>“You just what?” his warmth melts.</p><p>“Nothing. Sorry Sir.”</p><p>It should be the last of it. He hopes it’s the last of it as he packs up his briefcase, even getting it clipped shut.</p><p>“There are white girls who aren’t prudes. Girls who’ll do the kind of things negro girls do,” Jocelyn says.</p><p>Okay. Enough. Christina’s knuckles crack as she drops the entire William persona, turning on heel and pursing her lips.</p><p>“I know,” and she folds her arms.</p><p>Jocelyn looks like she’s trying to detect the difference and failing. But she does shrink.</p><p>“You white girls, you think that everything is about your exalted American twats. Birth of A Nation. The white virginal pussy must be protected because it is the future of white children,” Christina drawls.</p><p>Her eyes dart between Jocelyn’s legs, then back up, as if using her for an anatomy lesson. Jocelyn’s face has gone an ugly shade of red. It’s delicious.</p><p>William’s voice grates with the throatier bass Christina is used to, “Keep ‘em. I don’t want whatever ‘things’ you think you can provide me and I sure as hell don’t want your white children.”</p><p>Fat, humiliated tears roll down Jocelyn’s face and she shakes. It’s been too long since Christina was properly fed. The ugly monstrous thing inside the ugly monstrous thing inside the ugly monstrous thing sings with giddiness. Buried in it is this bubbling rage. A volcano.</p><p>“After all, you remember what they called me at the beginning of the semester,” Christina says, circling Jocelyn.</p><p>Jocelyn nods.</p><p>“What did they call me, Miss Hill?”</p><p>“N-ni-nig--”</p><p>“Lover, yes. I am.” Christina slaps her desk, watching the mouse of a girl shrink even further, “I am a nergo lover. I love my negro wife, and my negro children, and my negro brothers and sisters. I am not one of you.”</p><p>As a last act of tantrum, she throws the apple into the trash and storms out. The blood is rushing through her ears, and even the rate of her walk, and the tension roiling off her body aren’t slowing it. She walks past her car, down to the walking path and takes a few laps around campus before her head clears. </p><p>It’s on the drive home, when she glances at herself in the rearview that she has her eureka moment. What got her so fired up.</p><p>
  <em> “Don’t get the man wrong. It’s not like he was marrying them, just using his property how he saw fit. He wasn’t some kind of--” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> The laughter of the other Order members rang out around her and Christina wasn’t really sure why. She tucked it away though. Those words were the punchline to a joke. Love, unlike power or money, was something to be sneered at. </em>
</p><p>Christina slaps the steering wheel in annoyance, “Wake up, Braithwhite, you’re a thousand and thirty-five years old, time to stop shadowboxing your father.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>The outpouring of love and support for this fic has been spectacular. I'm so touched. Thank you for your continued support. I love reading all of your comments about thoughts and feelings from the fic and the universe. It's been a fun project for me, and most of all, I want to show compassion to the characters of this series in a way that I feel they were robbed of in the narrative. IDK, I think H P Lovecraft wrote about isolation with fear and xenophobia in his heart, and Matt Ruff touched on how xenophobia just adds to the fear and isolation out there. The show fell somewhere between the two.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. 1970</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>This chapter has everything: divorce! Vampires! Anticlimactic revelations! Ghosts?</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you to those patiently waiting for this update. The continued support really motivates me. For those who have been not-so patient, I appreciate your passion.</p><p>Okay, the warnings on this one are intense, but still nothing worse than the show? Wild. Pushed myself as a writer with some of this stuff.</p><p>This chapter contains: talks of miscarriages, drive by shootings, blood drinking, blood kink, murder, lots of gooey gut stuff. </p><p>I wrote a lot of the Europe stuff with not a lot of research, so apologies for the inaccuracies.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>
    <span>Racism and ethnic differences allow the power structure to exploit the masses of workers in this country, because that's the key by which they maintain their control. To divide the people and conquer them is the objective of the power structure. It's the ruling class, the very small minority, the few avaricious, demagogic hogs and rats who control and infest the government. The ruling class and their running dogs, their lackeys, their bootlickers, their Toms and their black racists, their cultural nationalists - they're all the running dogs of the ruling class. These are the ones who help to maintain and aid the power structure by perpetuating their racist attitudes and using racism as a means to divide the people. But it's really the small, minority ruling class that is dominating, exploiting, and oppressing the working and laboring people.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Bobby Seale, Seize The Time</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>One, two, three!</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>My baby don't mess around</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Because she loves me so</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>This I know fo sho!</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>But does she really wanna</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>But can't stand to see me walk out the door</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Don't try to fight the feeling</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Because the thought alone is killin' me right now</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Thank God for Mom and Dad</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>For sticking to together</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Like we don't know how</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Hey Ya, Outkast</span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <b>Winter (What is Spring to Chicago?). 1970</b>
</p><p>
  <span>It was bound to happen sooner or later.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They talk about most things. Ninety-nine percent of things they talk about. Hell, she even half-listens to Christina when she gets into the nitty-gritty of imported automobile parts. The same way Christina absorbs all of the drama surrounding this year’s Gramophone Awards. She even makes noises at the right time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The point of the matter is, very few topics are off the table or go under-discussed. They debated about cannibalism in the tenth century. Then again in the twenty-fifth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>What they won’t talk about is the fact that Christina’s missed two periods. Ruby knows, they synced cycles a millennia ago (Ruby’s womb won dominated.) They share a bathroom. She’s had two periods, Christina’s had zero.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They don’t talk about it because it’s not the first time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s a box in the back of the closet full of baby clothes they bought too early, because while two months is safe for Ruby…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After the fifth time, they stopped getting their hopes up. And just discussing the possibility seemed to invite the reaper into the room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rodney’s even taken to stocking the bedside table with condoms, because there’s no ambiguity there. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>William has a sip of wine with dinner, letting the red tannins stain his teeth in that way that always reminds Ruby of watching Christina drink from the opened throats of her enemies. How pretty. How monstrous.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can I take the bus tomorrow?” Thea asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What do you need to take the bus for?” the cord of William’s jaw works on his steak as he loads his fork.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Me and some of the girls wanna go downtown and join the protests for the Chicago Eight. Word is Judy Collins might even be there.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If you wanna meet Judy Collins I can introduce you to Judy Collins,” Ruby says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh my god, Mom! I don’t want to just meet Judy Collins at some bourgeois party. I want to be out there, fighting on the front lines!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I thought it was the policy of the ‘Doves’ to avoid fighting on the front lines. Aren’t those men on trial for protesting Vietnam?” William says cooly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby rolls her lips into a sip of her wine to hide a smile.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thea rolls her eyes in an all too uncanny imitation of her father, “The pigs aren’t some rice farmers just trying to earn their sovereignty, Dad.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>William and Ruby exchange another look. They’re old now. They’re being lectured on how the Chicago PD is evil and they’re just complacent old folks in line with The Man.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not that there’s a family body count for members of the police department. If William had less control he’d probably say something like, </span>
  <em>
    <span>“Sweetheart, I’ve been killing cops since you were a twinkle in my eye.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Instead, he deflects, “You’re fourteen years-old, far too young to be going to protests alone.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I just said, I’ll be going with the girls!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What other girls? You mean, Louise, Deedee, Jackie, and Midge? The oldest of whom is what, Jackie at fourteen and a half?” Ruby cuts in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thea chews her lip, sulking.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Isaac clears his throat, “Can I go over to Donnie’s Friday night? He just got a new telescope and we were gonna watch the Gamma Nomids.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s okay with Shirley?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sure then.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thea slams the table, “So Isaac gets to go hang out with his friends?!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Isaac is looking at stars from the safe home of a friend we know, not going downtown in the dead of winter,” William says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s a double-standard because he’s a boy, and it’s bullshit.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>William’s neck cracks. Then his wrists. Telltale signs of breaking free from a body. He blinks hard, panting through an open mouth. Ruby reaches for her spouse, flinching when he tears his hand away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Honey, are you okay?” Ruby asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His eyes change colours, imperceptible to most, but Christina's eyes are greener. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He tugs at his tie, “Excuse me.” A weak smile.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And strides off into the kitchen to ‘top up’.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The children watch in silence before Isaac hisses, “Good one, Thea!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shut up!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christopher makes eye contact with Ruby, connecting spiritually in their exhaustion.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you gonna ask me if you can do anything?” she asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christopher shrugs, “Can I play piano after dinner?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, but only until 9.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Something crashes from upstairs. Ruby tosses her napkin down, taking the steps two at a time, holding onto the railing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is Daddy okay?!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Stay downstairs!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s not the first time she’s found Christina butt naked, covered in blood, and vomiting. But, it has been awhile. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby grabs a towel from the bar that she uses to gather her wife’s hair with.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina’s laughing when she pulls her head out of the bowl, “My own--my own fucking daughter. Accusing me of favouritism, for the son I didn’t even want. Because of her sex. HA.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby scoffs, appreciating the irony.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is that what your stomach’s rejecting, or something else?” Ruby asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They talk around it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina eyes the medicine cabinet, “Maybe some undercooked meat.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby wets the towel in the sink, using it to wipe gore off Christina’s forehead. Christina closes her eyes, leaning into the attention.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A knock comes from their bedroom door before Isaac's voice spills through, “Is Dad okay?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina clears her throat, “He’s okay, just a migraine!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s dead air before three pairs of retreating footsteps.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby rubs circles into Christina’s back, “You want me to run you a shower?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She nods pathetically, drifting with Ruby’s touch.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If you can walk then I’m not carrying you.”</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was bound to happen sooner or later.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Thea tried to have a go at me about Vietnam the other day.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Atticus purses his lips, still poring over drawings from an archway in Romania.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They’re in his office. The office he fought for. Patchwork leather furniture. The smell of paper and oak. Bookshelves of first editions. Mounted and framed photographs. Van Morrison spinning on the record player. The kind of office he thinks either of his fathers would be proud of.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They make a pair. Him at his drafting table. Her sprawled on his couch, finger of scotch he poured sloshing between her index and thumb but never reaching her mouth. Which he notes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Young people. They don’t know what it was like over there. Haven’t had to live with fear of Communist car bombs. The pop stars and the TV tell them that we’re evil because helping out, so that’s what the kids believe,” he says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina huffs a little non-laugh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You disagree?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She shrugs, “It doesn’t matter.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Your opinion?” he looks up at her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Any of it. This war. Protests against the administration. Blue, Red. They’re afraid of the reds because they killed their ruling class, but that’s the thing about ruling classes, Tic. Anyone can become them, and then they see how much they enjoy it. It’s not politics, it’s oligarchs throwing the working class into their own little gang wars.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And, it works every time. If anything, American exceptionalism makes them blinder to being peasants fighting for two kingdoms,” she smiles like a predator.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He gives her a long look, “Leti’s doing what she can to help with the trial. Hardly see her these days, she spends ‘em all running around with the Panthers.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Does that mean she’s subjecting someone else to her terrible spoken word?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He throws a paperweight at her. She catches it. He’s biting his cheek and avoiding looking at her to keep his composure. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“George’s growing like a weed, what are you feeding him?” she changes tracks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Whatever’s in the cupboards, he can and will eat us out of house and home these days. It’s good. Helps him bulk up for boxing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She hums in non-comment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Which reminds me,” A sigh, “Have you thought any more about signing your boys up for lessons?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just because you learned masculinity at the fist of Montrose Freeman doesn’t mean that’s a prison I’m going to lock my children in.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Atticus takes his glasses off and turns his whole body to lock eyes with her, “Christina. You have two black sons. Black sons who are already straddling two worlds without the whole situation of you and Ruby,” he waves a hand before sighing, “They need to learn how to protect themselves.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He watches her chew on this, the cold fury in her eyes is a ruse. It’s just fear. Guilt. Some resentment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Especially if either of them turns out like ... I mean, Isaac is </span>
  <em>
    <span>sensitive </span>
  </em>
  <span>and he spends all of his time with boys.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She cackles, “Isaac? No. He’s a gentleman, not a dandy. Christopher on the other hand? Gay as a French picnic.” In a fluid motion, she sets her scotch down and pours herself water from the decanter instead, “I’m telling you now so that you’re not weird about it later, but Georgie’s batting for both sides.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“George? Nah. He’s girl crazy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She raises a single eyebrow, tucking her mouth into her glass to avoid elaborating.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Atticus swears, “Everyone in this damn family.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Except you and Dee,” Christina offers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Except me and Dee.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Old Man George had the vibe himself,” she adds.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Please don’t make me think about that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I could tell when I spoke to him. The higher consciousness.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re gay, not fucking Buddha.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You wouldn’t understand.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He gets up, tucking his hands into his back pockets.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So, since I’m no help with deciphering Ancient Romanian, that’s not what you invited me over for. Unless,” she does that thing where she gets much too close and practically drapes herself on him, “We’re hanging out.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He shakes his head, “I did call you over for some advice, just not on my work.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She huffs choosing to lean on his desk then with an expecting look.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Atticus doesn’t know how to start, so he fiddles with his glasses, cleaning and re-cleaning them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is it possible to cast a love spell on yourself?” he takes his glasses off and scrubs a hand over his face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“With the right ingredients and intent, yes, but you already knew that, Tic. What is it you actually want to hear me say?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He finds a spot on his globe, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Ecuador</span>
  </em>
  <span>, to look at, before jerking his head around.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t love my wife,” he says quietly, “And the thought of subjecting her to that--us to that for years. God.” He strides over to the coffee table to empty her decanter into his mouth. Too much. He shudders.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know,” Christina says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Know what?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I--we all know that you have never loved Letitia as much as she loves you, and while most marriages are hardly 50-50, you never seemed to want to bridge the 80-20 gap.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s more like 70-30,” he says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s generous.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He puts his hands on his hips, licking his teeth, “So what do I do about it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re seriously asking me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, you talked Ruby down from an 80-20--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We were never 80-20.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Atticus tips his head in doubt. Christina’s hackles rise and it’s honestly such a win for him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just because--you never saw--any setbacks ultimately built a stronger foundation for our marriage.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fine,” he raises his hands in defeat, “So, how did you talk Ruby down from 70-30?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I wooed her. I devoted my every waking moment to her happiness.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hm. I seem to recall you spent a lot of those waking moments coming up with ways to kill me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She scoffs, “You’re still hung up on that?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Never gonna be over it. But, pointing out that not every waking moment was spent towards pampering Ruby.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She shakes her head, “Tic, before we go round and round on this, the big difference here is that Ruby has never had her head too far up her own ass to be blind to a good thing. When I was courting her, offering her a place to stay, and a future, she didn’t take it for granted.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You comparing yourself to Leti?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She let you live here. Rent free. While struggling to keep her own tenants and bills paid. Because she wanted you.” Christina stands to get into his bubble.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I tried,” he flounders, “I really tried. The first years were hard with George getting colic, and the repairs to the house, and then Leti’s illness. And, it was just so hard to be in love when everything was exhausting and falling apart.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She pinches her nose, “Atticus. That’s marriage. Being in love because you’re a team through all that. Fuck, Montrose may be full of shit about everything else but I know he did try to teach you this. Why didn’t you listen?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He snaps, “Because I don’t want my parents’ marriage! Just coasting on duty while neither is unfulfilled. My momma, cheating on him with my uncle and dying young without ever being married to a man she actually wanted. My pops,” his face screw up, “Holding onto Momma like a life raft because if he was with someone he wanted then--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He rubs his face hard. “I can’t do that to Leti.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Quit acting like a martyr, Tic. It’s ill-fitting. You don’t want to be married to Leti, so stop.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He jerks his head in her direction. It all clicks into place. At the end of the day she will always occupy the spot of the devil on his shoulder, never more. No matter the ache for further kinship. The impact of that sting appears on her face as raised brows and bared teeth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And, that’s why you invited me over, because you knew I’d tell you this and you wanted permission from at least one authority figure in your life.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You are not an authority figure in my life.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am your senior. About--” “Three hundred and seventy-five days, yeah, yeah, yeah.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He drags his feet over to the sofa before flopping down on it like a wet sack.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I need to end my marriage,” he says heavily.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She mirrors his posture, flopping down. “Could always be worse. My father murdered my mother.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Atticus does not move his head as he absorbs this.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sacrificed. However you want to put it. The invulnerability spell, it required…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A body,” leaks from Atticus’s mouth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina purses her lips and sips her water, “Told me she </span>
  <em>
    <span>had a weak constitution of the mind</span>
  </em>
  <span> and that </span>
  <em>
    <span>her senses left her. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Suicide.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s a finality when she adds, “Still, protected me more than most mothers ever are capable. A mother’s love. Enough to stop a bullet.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s sucking on his tongue to keep from openly gagging. That final puzzle piece of the woman sitting next to him clicks into place, and now that he’s seeing the forest for the trees it’s all so clear.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>What are you supposed to say to that? Nothing comes to mind. Instead, he wraps an arm around her scrawny shoulders and pulls her in tight. She keeps stiff instead of melting into the contact like usual.</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was bound to happen sooner or later.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She was supposed to be in school.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But, in Thea’s defence, her parents were supposed to be at work.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her father, Professor William Davenport, is an esteemed professor of biology at the University of Chicago. Her mother, Ruby Baptiste, is part of the black American musical canon. Always playing some venue or answering charity telephones in New York. Mama’s been working on a new album. Something funkier than her previous two albums. The doo-wop one, and then the croony one. The producers from Detroit came down special. Just to work at Mama’s studio here in Chicago.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>What Thea’s saying is that playing hooky on a Wednesday is usually a safe bet. She slips in through the back door because James always keeps the back area shoveled, and her footprints are less likely to be seen in the hillier part of the estate.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This is why she’s walking past the living room bay window when she is and why she sees what she sees when she should not be there to see it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now, to preface, Thea knows about s-e-x. She’s not even scared to say it out loud. Her father’s given her enough thorough talks on the body and its functions. And, even when she was little, she learned to avoid approaching her parents’ room between the hours of eleven and six thirty. Lest she see or hear something gross. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gross in a kind of comforting way at this point. Jackie’s parents just got divorced. Darryl’s parents are divorcing. She can’t go to Keisha’s place anymore because her Mama left and her Daddy’s always working. And, she never saw their parents love each other as hard as hers. No slow dancing in the living room. No second and third good-bye kisses.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Their family is good. Her, Mama, Daddy, her brothers, and of course, Auntie Christina. Auntie, who drifts in and out of the house at all hours of the day. Sometimes replacing Daddy’s seat at dinner, sometimes eating in her office.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Auntie and Daddy are brother and sister though. So, it’s not like she can replace him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Or, that’s what she thought. Because when she looks up to find Mama naked on the couch, it isn’t Daddy crawling on top of her. It’s an abstraction at first, both knowing what she’s seeing and not wanting to believe it. The way Auntie’s hair works like a curtain that hides both of their faces from view. How they’re moving their bodies. It’s practiced. Not awkward.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her parents’ marriage is perfect.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But, it’s not.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her mother is cheating on her father with her aunt.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her life is a fucking lie.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s not supposed to be home, so she’s not supposed to have seen. Oh God, does Daddy know?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If Daddy knows … is he hiding pain? Or, is there some kind of </span>
  <em>
    <span>thing </span>
  </em>
  <span>that Thea’s just spent her life blind to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Also she should really get out of the snow and the view of the window because--</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Oh!”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Oh God.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She goes to Aunt Leti’s because it’s not too far and it’s not too cold outside and Aunt Leti is no snitch. She answers the door with a raised eyebrow and her teased out afro and lets Thea in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then she’s warming up in the kitchen and trying to be out of the way for the Black Panther meeting in the living room. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Aunt Leti flits in and out, “You playing hooky?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I wanted to go to the protests downtown, and they wouldn’t let me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She makes a face, “Well, I wouldn’t expect those two to understand the sacrifices that need to be made for the movement. But, you are a little young.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thea rolls her eyes, “I’m fourteen already! Mom was practically raising you and Uncle Marvin at my age.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And you can see how well we all turned out,” Aunt Leti bumps her with a hip, “We were getting into all sorts of trouble when Ruby wasn’t watching.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The words ‘Ruby’ and ‘watching’ make Thea wince.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey, you okay?” Leti asks, “Tell you what. We’ve got some pamphlets you can staple together for the movement. How does that sound?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Um, have you ever noticed anything weird between Mom and Auntie--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thea’s cut off by the arrival of several men in black berets. They mostly ignore her, talking to Aunt Leti instead. The more enter the room, the more she feels the need to squish herself away into the corner.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Except one. He notices and flashes her a charming smile, “Hey, I haven’t seen you around before. You new?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, I’m--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This is </span>
  <em>
    <span>my niece</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Thea. She's fourteen.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A look goes between the men, and it’s one Thea recognizes. Doubt. Not for the first time, she finds herself tugging at blonde hair and hating and loving her blue eyes. Daddy’s eyes. But not. Because Daddy is white, and Mama is black, and Thea can pass for neither. Not white enough to be White. Not black enough to be Black.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And surrounded by panthers she feels like some housecat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In all the excitement, she does forget to ask Aunt Leti about Mama and Auntie Christina, and then it’s time to go home and pretend she went a full school day. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How was school?” Auntie Christina asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thea grunts and shoves past, making sure to make as much noise and mess she can as she ascends the stairs. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Usually she loves Wednesday's because it's just her and Auntie. Isaac has Mock UN and Christopher has tap lessons, so they get to take out the Grimoire. Auntie teaches her the words to turn flowers into butterflies. Thea practices those words before sleep, but never yields results, each failure driving her from belief. Magic isn't real. It's just a silly game they play. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mama's cheating on Daddy. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She stands atop the stairs watching Auntie Christina greet Mama at the door with a kiss to the corner of the mouth. Just like always, but with fresh eyes, Thea sees the way Mama's hand flattens to the dip of Auntie's waist. The way their kiss lingers. The soft, </span>
  <em>
    <span>"Hi." </span>
  </em>
  <span>Exchanged too close. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>How long?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She guns them with glares at the dinner table. Glares that soften Auntie's voice and stiffen her jaw. Just like Daddy, who should be in her place. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Jeez, what crawled up your butt, Thea?" Christopher asks after the third pointed huff and deflection. She spots Auntie's failed poker face in the mirror. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Christopher, I'm not tolerating that language at my table!" Mama says. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thea smirks. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"But, Thea, I will also not tolerate how disrespectful you have been lately. Are you trying to push it?" Mama fires on her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"What am I pushing exactly?" Thea retorts. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Alright, bed. No TV. No friends after school for a week."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thea pushes herself back from her seat, "Fine. Let me know when Daddy gets home."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Isaac groans and rolls his eyes. Christopher sighs. Auntie closes her eyes as she chews. Mama's giving her a stare that could peel paint. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Daddy gets home at eleven. Maybe it's the hallway light, but he looks more drawn than she's seen him. His skin is sweaty and his eyes are tired. It’s strange because his clothes look fresh instead of creased from the day. Maybe he got changed?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Hey Sweetheart," he ducks to kiss her head. Breath comes rushing back into her chest as she hauls herself into his arms for a hug. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"What's wrong?" he asks as she begins to sob. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Big, fat, salty tears clog her throat. She pulls back to shake her head before hiding her face. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She doesn't want anything to change. She wants Mama and Daddy to stay together. She doesn't want Daddy to leave with a briefcase. She doesn't want two Christmases, and she doesn't want any fucking step siblings. What if Daddy marries a white lady and has perfect, white children? What if she and her brothers are stuck straddling the middle of two families?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So how does she tell him? </span>
  <em>
    <span>Mama's cheating on you with your sister. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Daddy and Auntie are orphans. If she snitches then they'll lose the last of their family.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thea can't do it, so instead she cries. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He clings to her hard, almost enough to hurt, and buries his face in her head. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I can't fix it if you don't tell me."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Promise me you're never gonna leave Mama first," she chokes out. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>His face goes from confusion to understanding, "Is this about your uncle leaving your aunt?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That hits like a punch to the stomach, "What? Uncle Tic is…?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Daddy makes the exact same 'busted' expression she's seen on Auntie and that just hurts more. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Sometimes people get married for the wrong reason," he starts hesitantly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thea sniffles hard, he wipes one of her tears with a thumb, "What's the wrong reason?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Any reason other than wanting to be married to that person," he says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Which is such a bullshit simple answer but it breaks her brain. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"And you wanted to marry Mama?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Yes. And, every day I wake up and I ask myself if I want to be married to your mother. And every day the answer is yes."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"What if it's no one day?" she asks in a small voice. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Then we'll talk about it then."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"What if she did something really bad. Like lying or cheating or--or," her eyes avoid his. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wipes her tears on his sleeve, "Your mother knows every bad thing I've ever done, and she's forgiven me. And I've done the same."</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was bound to happen sooner or later.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"I think Thea saw us making love," Christina says. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"A few times over the years," Ruby's voice is sleepy from the long fingers massaging her scalp. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Today, I mean."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby sucks in a breath, relaxed body tensing, "Would explain why she was being such a bitch at dinner tonight."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina hums.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Is that what she was talking to you about?" </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"She begged me not to divorce you even if you cheated," Christina looks down into her wife's eyes, "Unless there's someone else you've been fucking?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby blinks up at the jealous beast, aware of the soft fingers curling into claws.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You're not my master and I'm not your pet," Ruby says with her own edge. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Their stare off turns to a battle of hot and cold. Ruby's tired, so even with a damaged ego, she yields first. "Where would I have the time to tomcat around when you're fucking me three times a day, Fool? You got three mixed babies down the hall all with your face, and you think someone else's cock has been in me?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina grunts, grabbing Ruby's face and kissing her possessively. Ruby pushes back against it, anger and lust flaring together as it so often does with her Christina. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe she'd be less defensive, less pissed, if she hadn’t been offered a buffet of options last night and abstained because she had </span>
  <em>
    <span>food at home</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When she was a younger woman, she kept the wedding ring off during shows and in meetings because her fuckability opened doors. Play your cards right and you might get a face full of Ruby Baptiste’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>full figure</span>
  </em>
  <span>. A man with a hard cock was dangerous, but he was also stupid and much easier to manipulate. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s forty-five now, and there’s more power in being married than unmarried. Respectability replaced fuckability. The kids they send to carry her things spend more time calling her “Ma’am”, and treating her like a respected auntie than someone whose skirt they’d want to get under.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Which is why she was surprised that this year’s batch of interns brought her to a party full of coke and sex.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It seemed normal enough LA fare (which is ridiculous in Chicago during </span>
  <em>
    <span>February</span>
  </em>
  <span>) with giggly girls in loose dresses and indoor pools. But, then, Ruby’s visited enough orgies throughout history to get a nose for them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Michelle, this year’s flavour of girl with her natural afro and her small braless tits turned on a square heel to jiggle at Ruby. The joint she was handed at the door dangled between two fingers, “Do you wanna smoke, Miss Baptiste?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That joint. Ruby looked at it and remembered red fruit peeking between the bony white fingers of another hand. Of the taste of apple fed to her between lush lips.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sweat was gathered on Michelle’s throat, and another girl--white with brown hair past her bare tits-- bounced up to kiss Michelle on the mouth. Ruby felt hers go dry watching them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sorry,” Michelle giggled, turning back to Ruby, “I hope it’s okay. I heard a rumour that you might be cool about this sort of thing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The white girl rubbernecked to look at her and tucked her hair behind her ears, exposing herself further. “Oh my god, is that Ruby Baptiste? I heard you made some girl cum so hard in the bathroom of the Velvet Curtain that she couldn’t walk. Is that true?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I heard it was The Beagle,” Michelle said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby laughed, so it turns out those queens couldn’t keep their mouths shut.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s so cool. Having one of the original rock stars be like us, I mean, like Little Richard, but he’s a guy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was something relaxing about that. Or maybe it was the pot smoke getting to her head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, I don’t have anywhere to be, so if you’re looking for someone to render immobile…” white girl said, eyes dipping to Ruby’s cleavage.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They knew. They knew and accepted it. Liked it even. Saw her as some kind of public figure.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was power and sex and those two things are always so intoxicating. Freely offered, freely taken.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Do as thou wilt.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s the first commandment of her marriage. The implicit contract of leeway when it came to fidelity. But, in fifteen years of marriage, she had never used the clause. Nor had Christina--and that was always the best cold shower. The image entering her mind unbidden: some pretty white co-ed, in the back of her spouse’s old silver Bentley. Then, from between this college bitch’s legs would emerge the head of Ruby’s husband, or on nights when she needed a real ice bath, her wife. Blonde hair all fluffed up and mouth wet, that way that her bottom lip glistened when she crawled up to kiss Ruby, except she’s kissing some fucking Patricia or Nancy. But, that fear evolved. Now her jealous fantasies were filled with some pretty young fat black girl getting her tits fucked in the back of her spouse’s mustang. William’s bare ass pumping as little Tiana licked the head of that pretty pink dick. Or Christina smothering another black face in that pretty pink pussy. And that’s unacceptable, because that pink is Ruby’s fucking propety.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Which is how Ruby made it home on shaky legs and ascended the stairs to work all that tension out on Christina’s willing tongue.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The same tongue currently fucking Ruby’s mouth. Christina’s hands have moved from Ruby’s hair to her tits, rolling her nipples taught with dexterous thumbs. Her breasts aren’t young and perky like whatshername from the party. They’re stretched and scarred from the sacred act of feeding three children. Her wife has seen and tasted the full evolution of these breasts and never faltered in her enthusiasm.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby writhes in Christina’s lap, getting annoyed by the angle. She butts Christina’s head away and rolls over so they’re chest to chest and panting.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You smelled like someone else last night.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did I taste like anyone else?” Ruby locks their eyes even as she drags one of Christina’s nipples into her mouth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, that’s why I didn’t say anything.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But you thought,” Ruby drags her teeth over Christina’s Mark of Cain, “That maybe I was tiptoeing around making a cuckold of you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina shakes her head--not in negative, more to clear her head. Ruby snarls and bites into her mouth. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Go on, then, prove this is yours and fuck me like you own me,” she says against her wife’s skin.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina’s hands are shaking as she curls her middle and ring fingers inside Ruby. She’s not sure if it’s from rage or something else. Something smaller and sadder. And, that’s why they need to do this. Reassure and reassert their places in this home and this bed. Which is what has her milking coconut oil slick fingers until she gushes. It's what has her kissing Christina in an incoherent dance of teeth and lips. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When she puts her own mouth on her wife she breathes a prayer against sopping swollen lips that </span>
  <em>
    <span>this one</span>
  </em>
  <span> is the one they get to keep. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>After, when the anger’s burned out and they’re cuddling chest to chest Christina mumbles against Ruby’s heart, “It’s time to show the children the truth.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby hums agreement, kissing the tips of Christina’s fingers idly, “They’re all old enough to know to watch their mouths around company now. And the boys already know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Only because Christopher cannot spend the whole night in his own bed.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He is a mama’s boy through and through.”</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was only a matter of time.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>As much as the morbid father living within Christina fantasizes about “coming out” to the children quite literally by bursting from William’s skin, the less traumatic method is the reverse.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Which is why she leads the procession of Child-Child-Child-Wife down into the basement, making a show of unlocking the door. Just like the sales pitch to Ruby, a bit of flare is required.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Your mother and I had a discussion last night and we’ve agreed that it’s time you all knew the whole truth about our family,” Christina says, dropping the differences between herself and William in pattern and cadence.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thea’s scowling at her, letting her grudge block her from the truth before her eyes. A flaw that worries Christina. A Braithwhite must be sharper.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I always thought you had like, babies in jars and weird tubes down here,” Christopher says with some disappointment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The biggest change she’s made to the lab in the last fifteen years is the coffins of steel and glass for William, Grace, and Devon. Much tidier, less morbid, and climate controlled. An effective solution--Ruby’s actually. As was the shower in the corner.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The only jar baby was the progeny of Yog-Sothoth that we sent to Oregon.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Isaac nods as if he understands, Christopher frowns, and Thea begins to awaken. Ruby hovers over all of this in comfortable shoes, ready to catch any runners.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s Daddy’s robe,” Thea says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Isaac groans, “Oh my God, Thea, can you get a clue?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina decides now is as good a time as any and produces a bottle of potion between her index finger and thumb, “We’ve raised all of you with magic that has, until this point, only been purely theoretical. To you. For your protection. As has our living situation and my identity.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She pops the cap, “This is the first spell I ever completed. And, it should answer at least a few questions.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her eyes meet Ruby’s as she swallows.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Christina was a girl, the first motion picture she ever saw was Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. She felt the same madness overtake her as she watched Spencer Tracy’s mannerisms change. But even then, she saw it for what it was. The justifications of a vile man acting on his base impulses, rather than hiding them behind the veneer being a gentleman provided. She supposes, it was the first crack in the statue she had erected of her father.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When she transforms, there is a simplification as well, she supposes. Who is she at her basest impulses? What is the truth that William brings to the surface?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>William Davenport is her softer side. The gentle father and the amorous husband. When she is William she is allowed to be a gentleman. She pulls out her wife’s chair, or holds the door, or rests a hand at her waist when they walk. She smells of pine. She drives where she wants. She walks where she wants, and talks to whomever the fuck she wants. Because, William is a rich white man. William is all the power in the world, and she wields it like a shield instead of a knife. Christina’s already a knife. She needs to be her own matched set.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The first part of William that comes is always the broadening of her face. It feels like being stretched. Her limbs fill out with thicker flesh. More muscle, more fat. Her hair disappears beneath a new layer of skin. She doesn’t close her eyes, keeps them fixed on her family. Her children are looking at her with a disgusted kind of awe. Like a god.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She pushes William’s hair back and chuckles softly, “While the process isn’t entirely painless, it is a discomfort I’ve gotten quite used to.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Isaac crosses the table first, touching his father’s hand like it’s going to collapse into something soft and fake. The flesh bounces back, pliable. Christina can read her son’s face, so she offers the hand up, for Isaac to press his fingers against.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I always wondered how you did it,” he says after a moment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How do you take it off?” Christopher asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That process is a little more violent. I didn’t want to frighten you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Violent how?” Isaac says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s Ruby who answers, “Remember when we saw all of those spider shells at the zoo? It’s like that but with more blood.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Gross! Can I see?” Christopher asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thea hasn’t said a word, just has her eyes fixed on her father. William sighs and walks over.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You lied to us. For years,” she says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And in this moment she looks so like her mother. Christina’s eyes dart between them to admire the semblance, and dread it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s hard enough for you three having a family like ours when it’s just the race thing you have to worry about. Having two mamas, well, among other things could have us sent to an asylum, and you put in the care of the state.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So lie to the world, but not to us!” Thea says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Maybe you’re correct, but we couldn’t be certain that it’s a secret you would be able to keep. And, we didn’t want to burden you with it,” Christina says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She walks her fingers close to Thea’s hand, flinching as her daughter jerks them away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can we try it? Turning into somebody else?” Isaac asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina and Ruby both say, “Why would you want to be anyone else?” Concern mirrored when they look from Isaac to each other.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“To get extra free ice cream on free ice cream day, or to rob a bank? Oh! Or to have a secret identity like Batman,” Christopher has an epiphany, “Daddy, you’re like if Batman was actually Barbara Gordon!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They’re taking it remarkably well. All except--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thea stands. Her fists are stiff at her sides.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can I watch TV?” she asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She refuses to meet Christina’s eyes and it feels like her whole heart is being squeezed in one of those fists.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thea,” Ruby starts.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Go ahead,” William says, pulling his robe closer around his body and turning on heel.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can you feel everything just the same?” Isaac asks, poking at his father’s stomach.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“About eighty percent of everything.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can you feel that?” Christopher pinches William’s arm.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can you feel that?” he prods his side.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His hand darts out again and William catches it, </span>
  <em>
    <span>“Yes.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“If I drink this potion will I turn into you?” Isaac asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, the potion is bonded with my blood and will only change me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So I better not catch you two down here trying to wear your dad’s skin,” Ruby says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>William half-smiles, but his head is upstairs, and his heart feels like a noose.</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>Intellectually, Thea Davenport </span>
  <em>
    <span>understands</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ethically, Thea Davenport is </span>
  <em>
    <span>relieved</span>
  </em>
  <span>. No act of infidelity was committed. Her parents’ marriage is as solid and steady as she thought before. If anything, catching their indiscretion was a sign of that. Taking the afternoon off work to fuck each other instead of other people. An anomaly after fifteen years of marriage.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Emotionally, Thea Davenport is </span>
  <em>
    <span>grieving</span>
  </em>
  <span>. She grieves for the aunt she had and the father she had and the </span>
  <em>
    <span>person </span>
  </em>
  <span>who lives in her house who is somehow both and neither. She loved Auntie Christina. Loved all of her quirks and idiosyncrasies. The delicate confidence with which she navigated the house. How strange, and tall, and restrained she was. And, how that made it more delightful when she was relaxed. If she could get Auntie Christina to dance in the living room with her, or join her in the water fight against her brothers, then that was a win. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then there’s Daddy. Her strong, playful, </span>
  <em>
    <span>insufferable </span>
  </em>
  <span>father. Daddy, who, she knows, would pluck the stars from the sky to please her. He’s always so present, flitting through whatever space he’s in. The way he waits, hand and foot on Mama, or how he hugs and kisses them more than she’s ever seen the other dads do. How he can throw a baseball and a punch better than them too, so he gets called a ‘family man’ instead of a ‘sissy’. She remembers riding his shoulders at the fair, and she remembers Auntie holding her after a nightmare and these two images blur into one. Her father. Her mother. Superimposed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And all those nights when she waited up late for her father to get home when he was already there, helping her with homework. Drinking a potion in the basement just to put her to bed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She swallows hard.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The years must’ve weighed on Daddy. Playing two different parts in the house. All to keep up some ruse of a normal family.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thea digs her nails into the chair and exhales sharply. Steps and voices come from the basement door and she studiously avoids them. She keeps her eyes on Name That Tune. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She ignores the approaching steps until the TV is blocked by Mama.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’re going for a drive,” Mama says with no room for argument.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The boroughs go by in their silence, and Thea’s attempt to adjust the radio in the silence gets a, “Leave it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She sighs instead, “What are we going?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“To the salon,” Mama says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thea does a double take, curious.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s a lot. It was a lot when I found out, so I get it,” Mama says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You didn’t know?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“When we first met, your father was just some white man trying to pick me up at the bar. Told me he saw magic in me. Shit, I hadn’t seen magic in myself since I was a little girl. And, you know what? He was right. I am magic.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How did you feel when you found out?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Angry. That I’d been lied to. Scared, of what was gonna happen to me now that I knew her secret. Confused, because the truth is … I had already wanted them both. And, at the time, I wasn’t used to getting what I wanted. And, I was scared in that way you are just before making a choice to do something so much better than what you’re used to it’s gonna change your whole life.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thea absorbs this the way that she needs to. The family lore is that Daddy met Mama at a show and asked her for an encore--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Truth is, I was having a bad day, and he just sat at the bar buying me drinks and listening to my troubles. And, I thought he was listening because he wanted to … you know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve grown up around you two.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But he kept on listening. She still listens. I hope that if there’s one thing we’ve instilled in you kids, it’s never to settle for anything less than what we have. Never marry someone who doesn’t see the magic in you. Who doesn’t listen.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thea nods, leaning her head against the window, “I’m going to miss Auntie.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She didn’t go anywhere.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Fat tears spring from her eyes, “I know. I just don’t know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mama pats her thigh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come on, we’re here. Let’s get your nails done.”</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was a long time coming.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The last pieces of Ardham are crushed under industrial steel monsters. The tree she climbed as a child is torn up by its roots. The village down the hill is full of men in hard hats sharing coffees and sandwiches on lands that used to belong to people. But, before that, it belonged to other people. One chased out by either sickness or sword. It’s just earth. They all return to it in the end. Who knows, maybe the Ardhamites will discover TV and other modern dens of sin. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Atticus shares her smirk as they watch a wrecking ball smash through the stained glass of the church.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My kingdom for your forgiveness,” she says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This was never your kingdom just like it was never mine. It’s a prison. And now it’s a future highway to Canada.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And the money is yours. Reparations with interest,” she says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He nods, “You still planning on packing the shoggoths up for what … a beach house?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s a nice little wooded property, but yes, mostly beach.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“In New Jersey?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s wrong with New Jersey?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Everything.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Says the man moving to Florida.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There’s a lot going on in Florida,” Tic says, “I asked George to come with me. He doesn’t wanna leave his friends … school, his mom.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You could stay,” Christina offers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tic shakes his whole body, “I don’t think I was ever supposed to stay in Chicago. I’ve always been on borrowed time, and I think it’s time to cash in.”</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was only a matter of time.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It’s Sunday.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mmhm.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina blinks blearily at her wife, not seeing a hint of movement from Ruby except the hand migrating between them to grab her thigh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The room is still dark grey and sleep thick. The chill has a way of breaking through these old windows, forcing the hand of wool blankets and close cuddles.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby pulls apart the stick of her lips, “It’s the first Sunday after my sister’s husband left her, and I have no intention of being there for any sort of fallout.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’re not going to church?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t sound so disappointed.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby whuffs a little laugh at the force of how quickly Christina tackles her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They get George in the divorce.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Unofficially. Leti’s pride wouldn’t accommodate such a thing, but his face becomes a mainstay at dinner. No fuss is made. Christina quietly makes up one of the upstairs bedrooms and even leaves an old typewriter on the desk. Just in case. Tells him it’s late and the roads are icy and she can call his mom.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Leti’s so distracted anyway, with Atticus moving himself across the country, and the police harassment, and the tenants, and the Panthers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s so easy for George to slip through the cracks of his mother’s attention, and he gets along with his cousins. He walks to school with Thea. He shares books with Isaac, and plays hockey with Christopher in the driveway.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And, it gives Christina and Ruby a chance to try and undo the damage being raised in the Lewis-Freeman household. The extent of which is first seen is the awe he displays when they solve a disagreement civilly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Was that a fight?” he asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” both say.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We don’t fight,” Christina says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby snorts.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We disagree, passionately,” Christina says, getting a smile from Ruby when she kisses her knuckles.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I just thought that when you disagree with someone….” he trails off.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby rubs his head, "You tell them what you're upset about and talk about it until you both feel better."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"And then you check on it another six times," Christina adds with a little sass. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It gets her a swat to the backside that makes her straighten and give Ruby a hot look. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Which, is part of the initiation to the Davenport family. Gross goo-goo eyes at the table.</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was only a matter of time.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It’s just posters. Black Panther recruitment posters, pieces of paper that can’t really hurt anybody. Doing her part for the advancement of black people and the demilitarization of the police. It makes Thea feel grown-up, trailing after these pretty college girls and boys with their natural hair and leather winter jackets. There’s an authenticity that again, makes her want to reject her expensive coat and ear warmers. But, while they shiver in the February cold, big clouds of breath escaping their mouths, she is warm. She’s just the girl holding the box of flyers while they do all of the real work. The stapling, the educating of other students just off-campus.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They hear the squealing of tires and the crunch of gravel, but that’s just icy, snowy roads in winter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>How are they supposed to expect--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She registers the gunshots and the screaming and there’s this dull awareness that the air smells more metallic before. And then, that the bullets are coming straight for her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She closes her eyes, expecting death, and opens them, splayed out amongst a pile of pamphlets, soaked crimson and blue from blood and snow. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Daddy says that there’s something called shock that happens after an injury, when the body is too high on adrenaline to register that it has been injured. It’s how soldiers on the battlefield will carry their own wounded comrades while missing parts of their heads. She doesn’t want to see or know what has happened to her body. Instead, Thea struggles to her feet and looks for her friends.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Salim, the pretty boy with the gentle smile and the sunglasses is clutching his side, gasping little clouds in the winter air. Blood is getting his fingers damp. Where is Naomi? A glance around spots her crouched behind a power pole. She’s shuddering and covering her ears, but Thea doesn’t see any blood, so she applies pressure to Salim’s side, ignoring the way it stains the white fur of her gloves.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s other students, the ones drawn by gunfire, who call the police. And then she’s in the back of a paddy wagon staring at the blood on her gloves.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s a nightmare scenario, one she’s had drilled into her by her mother and aunt.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Speak calmly and clearly.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Do not raise your voice.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Always say their rank, or address them as “Sir”.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Keep your hands still and where they can see them.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Ask permission for everything, and if you’re free to go.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>They take her into a room and ask her about terrorist plots by the Black Panthers. They ask what her connection to the Nation of Islam is, and who she voted for.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m fourteen. I didn’t vote for anybody,” she says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The officers questioning her exchange a look that she reads as skeptical.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Would explain the lack of ID,” she hears one say.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Officers, may I call my parents?” she asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They let her. Which is how she’s out of cuffs and questioning within an hour and stepping into the precinct to find her parents. Daddy’s jaw is tight and he’s so pale that the blue of his eyes seems to pop out with an electric madness. Mama’s smaller than she’s ever seen her, eyes glossy with unshed tears and arms still at her sides.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thea only needs to take three steps before she’s sandwiched between the two of them. This is the exhale where she begins to sob into her mother’s chest. They paw at her, checking for injuries just like when she’d fall off the swing. Instead of bruises, they find bullet holes in her coat. Ones even she missed.</span>
</p><p><span>Mama pulls her close, eyes wild and disbelieving as she checks Thea’s body, finger catching on the gold chain she wears under her clothes, exposing the charm Auntie--</span><em><span>Daddy</span></em> <span>gave her five years ago.</span></p><p>
  <span>She watches understanding turn to relief, then to rage on her mother’s face. She watches that rage get pointed at her father, who stays his ground.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She watches the storm clouds of a looming fight build around the front cab of the car on the drive home. Being in the line of fire twice in a twelve hour period isn’t nearly as frightening as the night after, tucked into bed, and hearing her parents have the first screaming argument she’s ever heard.</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was only a matter of time.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They didn’t fight. Not before this.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Or, maybe this is the fight they’ve been having all along. Circling this drain every minute, every day, every year. Christina says she wants nothing more than to fulfill Ruby’s desires. Then she puts her own desires first. Selfish. Always selfish, especially when she’s being selfless.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re not listening to me!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course I listen to you!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby’s voice goes dangerously low, “Then tell me O’ why, O’ lover of mine, did you lie to me about giving our children marks of Cain?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina sucks her cheeks in, gaze defiant, “I never lied to you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You said--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You told me that I could not cast the Mark of Cain on our children’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>bodies</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby scoffs, shaking her head, “Right. Right. Why is it that I always forget? The Devil is so precise with the language in how he cuts his deals. You will listen to me to the letter just to find a work around.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If I hadn’t then our only daughter would be dead in the street right now,” Christina jabs a finger to articulate.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So, I’m just supposed to get on my knees and thank you, </span>
  <em>
    <span>oh thank you, </span>
  </em>
  <span>for going behind my back--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No! You’re supposed to be grateful. And terrified. And so, fucking relieved that I went behind your back to fulfill my duties as a mother and a father!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They’ve been here before. Mirrored now. Ruby watching with a stone clarity as little angry tears roll down Christina’s cheeks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The last time they were here, Christina carved her own words into Ruby and then left with muted heels on carpet. It was another black child last time. One Ruby begged Christina to feel for. Christina said she didn’t. She didn’t care, and for her money, Ruby was more upset that she didn’t care either than what Christina thought.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Pettiness would have her doing the same. It would have her taking Christina’s thoughts and feelings laid bare and slapping her in the face with it. An ugly truth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Their marriage isn’t founded on pettiness.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s founded on want.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby wants to be angry, and she wants to forgive, and she wants to collapse under the weight of the last twenty hours.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Today she is lucky. Today she has all three … four, five children accounted for and a pregnant wife who is silently crying on unsteady heels. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The last time they were here, Ruby didn’t know what she wanted. She wanted Christina to do something. She wanted to be held and she wanted to fight. She wanted to be with her people and she wanted to be with Christina. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She knows now that none of those wants are contradictory, because she can hold with one arm and fight with the other. And, Christina is Ruby’s people. Where she dies, Ruby will lay down and be buried alongside her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This clarity is what calms her breast as she pulls Christina to it. Long arms wrap around her. Tears drop off that swoop of a nose onto Ruby’s dress. Ruby’s own tears come as she rests her chin on a skinny shoulder.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Our babies are alive,” she says, hand cupping Christina’s still occupied womb.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s a fact, not an absolution.</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was only a matter of time.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When she was a younger woman she preferred effortless kills. Setting up a series of events to give her the result without so much as a raised fist.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Inauguration to her forties is appreciating the satisfaction of a nine iron shattering a temple.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jimmy Porter drops like a cartoon character. But, his assistant, Frank, takes off at a sprint screaming bloody murder. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>William watches him go, all kicking legs and pumping arms. The approaching grind of their golf cart’s tires makes him wail harder. He trips over his shoes, getting a face full of dirty snow before Rod drives over him. Then backs up, and drives over him again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>William laughs as he descends the hill, dragging Jimmy by a foot as he approaches the cart.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You like doing that,” he says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I like being sure,” Rod gets out of the cart, “And, squishing racist heads like watermelons never gets old.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>William huffs a laugh and it comes out as puffs of white vapor.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Supposed to be the last cold snap of the season. He should be turning to soup by the time they find his body.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rod tucks his hands in the pocket of his bomber jacket. He cuts a masculine figure in the grey night. They both have dated hair cuts at this point, but it sells their ages easier. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sure you don’t want to feed him to the Ardham babies?” he asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The babies are fed,” William says, a little chafed, “It’s a good use for the shed skins.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t like giving them a taste for our blood,” Rod shivers, “So we’re taking Jimmy to search his brain?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>William hums in assent, “Leti said she’d be available but something came up,” a shared eye roll, “No matter. We can always brute force it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do love to watch you work,” Rod takes advantage of the darkness, grabbing William by the ass and sticking his tongue in his mouth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>William kisses back hungrily. They’re still not on the best of terms. Ruby and Christina occupy different wings of the house during the day. The children tread around as if the floor is ice. It’s a hell of her own doing, and she will not yield, but she resents it. Resents her own stubbornness. Growing up in an ice castle made her into this monster, and she swore never to rebuild it in her own home.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That’s why the compartmentalization of different bodies helps. Ruby might be mad at her husband and wife, but Rod’s always been the more easygoing of the three. Grace is a special occasions gal and she holds a nasty grudge. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You gonna keep dragging him like that?” Rod asks like his erection isn’t poking William in the bladder and occupying most of his attention.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This is a nice jacket. I don’t want to get all his filth on it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You don’t have to, we have a cart.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A pretty incriminating cart at this point.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rod gets back in and revs the measly engine, “Your point? Haven't you heard? There's all sorts leaving dead bodies around the country these days.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>William follows his lead and hauls Jimmy’s body into the back of the cart. It drives up and over Frank before cutting into mud and snow in the U-Turn.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Take your cock out,” Rod says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>William twitches at the words leaving those plump lips. The air whistling past them is biting.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s cold,” he says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>William obeys. Christina’s always loved Ruby’s sadistic streak and an icy handjob is no different.</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>Magic bleeds sluggishly through Jimmy’s body. His shattered jaw flops around uselessly before he speaks. Well, groans.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The shower hisses off, and Ruby pads out in slippers and her robe. Christina snaps. Not at her, but to get Jimmy’s silly little puppet head to start spilling information.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why did you shoot at my daughter?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Our daughter,” Ruby chimes in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I didn’t!” Jimmy’s voice is like air escaping a lung.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Who shot at our daughter then?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hired men. Cops in suits.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Chicago PD is in need of another reckoning it seems.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did you hire them?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yessss.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why did you do that?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They asked me to.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Who is ‘they’?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They cursed me not to tell. Some men with,” his mouth collapses into itself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fuck,” Christina slaps the table.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, we know it was a lodge now,” Ruby sighs, “Working with the White Lodge here or not. We can get Leti to check his body for residue in the morning.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As if prompted by this statement, he explodes into blood and viscera.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s a moment of stiff silence as Ruby cracks her neck in exasperation.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“See, now they’ve really pissed me off,” she says, wiping a scrap of cheek off her forehead. She’s always gorgeous with chunks of human tissue clinging to her, but tonight Christina finds it irresistible. She grabs Ruby by the waist, one hand sliding to grope her ass while the other grabs her chin. Ruby holds still and breathes hard as Christina cleans blood off her face with her tongue. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nasty,” she mutters, opening her mouth to catch Christina’s.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Silk robes are shed like skins as Ruby pushes Christina back under the spray. They chase blood droplets mixed with water on each other’s skin and share the taste in noisy kisses. Ruby pauses in rolling a nipple against her palm to rest her forehead against Christina’s.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did these get bigger?” she asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina laughs.</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <b>Snow Thaw (Late April). 1970</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was only a matter of time. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mom and Dad sleeping in the same room isn't a sign of a warming cold war. No, they'd probably do </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span> even if they got divorced. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christopher knows the war is over when he catches them in the kitchen.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Stop looking at me like that!” Mama laughs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He creeps in, waiting in the door way. Daddy’s making that stupid wall-eyed face that never fails to make Mama laugh. She pushes closer to Mama, not changing her expression. Mama wrinkles her nose, giggling, and blows a raspberry against Daddy’s cheek. This breaks Daddy, making her laugh. She chews on the string of Mama’s dress while Mama returns to her pie crust, taking scraps and sticking them to Daddy’s eyebrows.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Some people think physical love is hugging and kissing and stuff, but he knows. Real love is being silly with each other. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It's a relief. Getting to occupy the kitchen with both of them. It's been two weeks of hockey games with Thea, George, and Mama, or listening to Daddy and Isaac talk about spells. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He doesn't need help with his spells, he's already learned a lot from Uncle Will who lives under the house. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Like, he knows about the bodies in the basement, and soon he'll learn how to read people's futures. Just like on TV, but real. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Daddy spots him and pinches his nose, "What mischief are you getting into?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"When can I have a necklace like Thea's?" he asks. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The question makes the smile melt off Daddy's face and she glances at Mama in alarm. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mama takes her time removing dish gloves before turning, face stoic. Christopher's heart jumps into his throat. Sometimes Uncle Will tells him the worst things to say.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Actually, just for now, I was thinking of one each. One for you, one for Isaac, one for George," she says. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Daddy's spine goes slack and she exhales. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mama brushes Christopher's hair away from his face. "There are bad men out there who want to hurt you as a way of getting at me and your daddy. We're not going to let them."</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ruby’s pregnancy cravings were mild. Thea was incubated on brisket and winter melon. Isaac’s more refined palate called for blue cheese and anchovies. Christopher still has the sweet tooth even now, but his love of chocolate and ice cream started inside of the womb.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Braithwhite number four wants blood.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not just iron heavy greens or rare meat. Something beating, hot, and fresh. Like Vlad Tepes’s opened throat gushing into her mouth like Ruby’s cunt.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jimmy’s body was a reminder of her devouring nature. One, it seems, she is imparting to her progeny. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She sucks her teeth in class, considering her options. She could do this lecture from a hospital bed at this point, and school is always where she has her best murderous ideas.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Complacency crept up on her with middle age. She let Montrose take the lead on the west coast lodges, and sat on her laurels waiting for the midwest to devour each other. She should have been more proactive. A young Christina Braithwhite would be consumed by the task. She’d create plans upon plans, layered and tiered like a cake, then cackle into her champagne as she celebrated the death rattle of the Order of the Ancient Dawn. Middle aged Christina Braithwhite fell asleep on the couch while the family watched </span>
  <em>
    <span>The Carol Burnett Show</span>
  </em>
  <span>.  The third body inside William seems to be a beating reminder. They are not nourished on sweetness.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The who and the how is the meditation. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The messy act of killing has always fallen to Christina. The man across the street who banned his children from playing with hers, and spat on her son fell from a ladder. A rival of Ruby's was standing in the wrong place at the wrong time. Flattened by a piano. Most gratifying was watching the Portland lodge pulled limb from limb and fed to the son of Yog-Sothoth before it toppled into the ocean and perished of who knows what. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She's held off on telling Ruby until she finds her in the kitchen suckling on the blood from her own hand. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"What is this?" Ruby asks, pulling the hand away, then letting it snap back to Christina's mouth when she growls. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"She's hungry," Christina says, motioning to her own stomach. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby looks at the knife balancing on the kitchen sink. Red teeth shine under the gloss of the moonlight. She looks from it to Christina's tongue darting against her palm. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You should've told me," Ruby sighs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She cups the little bump under Christina's nightgown, "You want something fresh, don't you?" She addresses Number Four. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I can deal with it, I just need to pick the who," Christina's voice is needling. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby makes a shallow cut on her own breast, just below the collarbone and leads her wife's head to it, "It shouldn't be up to you. I'm the father of this one. I need to provide."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina mewls in her eagerness to drink from Ruby’s breast. Her tongue glides against the unknit flesh. Moaning again at the pressure of Ruby’s hand holding her in place.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She loves her woman’s taste. They are two vessels. One emptying into the other back and forth. A concoction that began with two separate beings, but the lines between them have blurred so much in these centuries. Together they’ve built and destroyed empires. Together they’ve built new life. A life that writhes inside Christina, delighting in a craving sated. However briefly. Drinking from Ruby is like drinking from herself. A flat finger against an itch instead of a sharp nail. </span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>There is an evil inside Ruby Baptiste that has fed well in all her years. An evil born when she was, but fed on the volcanic rages of injustice. One that gorged itself on her darkest fantasies. The violent violations. The justified punishments. Cracking the skull of a man who spat on her. Cutting away the dress of the girl who mocked Ruby’s body in PE. Just thoughts. A thought can’t be a sin. She’s no Catholic. No, evil is in words. It’s in actions. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Along came Christina Braithwhite. Her devil in a red dress, who offered Ruby the freedom of evil without consequences. To push back against a world trying to smother her beneath its heel. Christina is, and has been, both Ruby’s guide into the darkness, and her sin-eater. Every evil act is followed by the confession. Slamming the heel of a shoe into that white pig’s ass isn’t something she would have done. Would have dared to do. If not for Christina opening that door and offering a hand. And, when Ruby told her of it, in gory detail, Christina’s eyes got large and her nostrils flared. She still hid behind William’s face at this point. She asked, “Did you like it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I hated it,” Ruby replied.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He kept his eyes on her, waiting.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I loved it,” she admitted.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You loved and hated it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I hate that I loved it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Was it the revenge that felt good, or something else?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He was fishing. For what, she had an idea.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you asking me if I liked tying that man up and fucking him in the ass?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His lips went soft, a faint shine to the lower lip, looking up at her like a dog begging for dinner. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Just like that. Seeing and hearing her worst, and absolving her in a second. No Hail Mary’s. No condemnation. Just desire in pale blue eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Love. Without hesitation or limitation.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This vessel that he/she/he/she empties into her daily. Her love and her cum filling Ruby, transmuting her into a perfect match.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Of course she will hunt down prey for her pregnant mate. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The other Lodges have managed to put together their collective brain cell to create a kind of … undoing spell for their brand of walking in another’s skin. Which forces creativity, and Ruby isn’t opposed to that. She’s had some success with puppeteering, but at the end of the day she’s much more pragmatic. Magic has a cost in flesh and blood. Money is easier. Two hundred dollars and a protection spell on a waiter of her planting will get her what she wants. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>See, Ruby listens when her wife speaks. Christina might not have the tongue for gossip that the ladies at church do, but she also doesn’t hold back when it comes to dragging the other orders through the dirt.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Staten Island, Nantucket, Jersey, Rhode Island, West Virginia. Their little family trees and their little secrets. Some help from Leti’s seer eyes finds just the right target. The right flavour.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her hair is mousy, and her nose has the perpetual curl of smelling something bad. The irony of working at a perfume counter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can I help you with something?” she asks Ruby, without the smile meeting her eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m looking for a gift,” she says, drawing the syllables out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, we also carry a number of more affordable brands on the first floor,” she says like her lipstick isn’t cheap. Like her jewelry isn’t plated tin. Like the most expensive thing on her isn’t that gaudy necklace her married boyfriend got her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby, with her dress (satin, designer) and her handbag (leather, custom) and her shoes (satin, custom, matching the dress) smiles real nice and says, “It’s for my husband.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I see. Something for the clubs then?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby tilts her head, “No, he’s a professor. Something professional, but not stuffy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She knows which bottle she wants. The perfume isn’t the gift. Still, she finds a surprise in a square bottle that smells of sticky amber. It’s nice. Masculine, but sweet, and just those descriptors make her clench.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She gets close enough to the case to see the schedules neatly printed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Abigail. Weekends. 12-8. Such a late hour for a young lady to be getting home. How dangerous.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s perfect, thank you.”</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>The tour offer comes through her agent.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Six countries. Eleven cities. Beginning of the summer. Just a month on the road. It’s great publicity for the new album and a chance to make Ruby Baptiste’s name go international. They need an answer soon because of all the bookings, and the logistics with the band.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She says yes without even thinking.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The idea of Christina’s hair backlit by Paris, face shadowed by their room. An updated photo of the children posing with Paddington Bear. Shopping in Milan, revisiting Rome after the crusades.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Excitement buzzes through her as she comes down the stairs and is met with her pregnant wife, and sister, carrying a jar of those brain worms. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina’s eyes find hers, as they always do. As they have across rooms and oceans of stars. It still gets her a smile. A goofy shy one that Ruby mirrors. She finishes her descent and greets her wife with a kiss. Because they can. Because their children know they have two women for a mother and a father. And Ruby likes kissing her. The brush of their lips together and the way her palm fits Christina’s waist.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Everything okay?” she asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s a crash from the back yard. Three adult heads jerk in the direction and are met with George tailed by Isaac, “It’s nothing! It’s fine!” they’re shouting.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Four kids, only so many bones, what could go wrong?” Leti asks, moving past to get to the basement.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby opens her mouth to speak.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What is it?” Christina asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s when they’re winding down for bed later that they actually discuss it. Christina, sitting at the vanity and removing her jewelry. She’s got ink stains on her hands from grading papers and checking homework. Thea’s good with math, but George struggles with numbers like his grandfather struggles with letters. Ruby’s own eyes are tired of poring over Christopher’s spelling tests and seeing why the teachers won’t stop calling them about foul language. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Got tour dates lined up for promoting the new album. June second to July third. Should be back just in time for Independence Day.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina meets her eyes in the mirror, “That’s soon.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby nods, “Yeah, it’s also in Europe. I thought,” she sighs. She’s changed into her nightgown and now lets her feet lead her to Christina, hugging her from behind. Christina’s body reacts to the affection as it always does, with the kind of eager greed of a starved child. However, the blue eyes that stare at her through the mirror are challenging.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Europe?” she says, applying lotion to her arms and elbows. It always makes Ruby laugh. It’s not like her white wife can get ashy around the joints.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“When I took the dates I thought that we could go as a family. Show the kids around, do the tourist thing during the day.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina nods.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And I really have missed fucking you against the railing of a Parisian hotel.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It puts a crack in that poker face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I remember enjoying that as well,” she says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But,” Ruby sighs again, “Even though Thea and Isaac are older. Everything with The Order, and Leti, and the baby.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Getting out of Chicago might be the wisest thing for us to do, once our plan is executed. To avoid swift retribution.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She might be right.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I could go ahead. Scout a house for us. Might be good for the kids educations.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina nods against the plush of her chest, “Lake Geneva? We could be as Byron, Shelley, and Wollstonecraft. Crafting terrible tales in the dark.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby snorts, “Try Lake Como. Italy at the very least has black people.”</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>It’s nothing personal, Abigail. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Well, yes, it is. It’s a series of personal affronts and the overall affront of having her humanity reduced by nasty snaggle-toothed girl who somehow thinks she has a future in furthering the progress of the mighty white race.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Please! Please let me go!” Abigail sobs from the back seat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grace keeps her bubbly appearance, “Oh, we’re going to have so much fun together, Abby. I can’t wait to introduce you to my husband.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She sees that hit Abigail in the gut just before the drugs do. Then her own mouth goes slack. No matter how cute Grace is with her bow mouth and her heaving chest, there’s just no white body that can contain the multitudes of Ruby’s own looks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I wasn’t sure if you’d want her lively or not,” Ruby announces as Christina descends the stairs. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s date night. And, with older children that means sleepovers giving them the house, finally, properly, to themselves.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh,” Christina’s voice drops. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Consider the stocks an early birthday present,” Ruby says, sticking a hand under Christina’s dress and finding no barrier there. She rubs a hand over the soft skin of her wife’s ass before openly fingering her pussy. Christina spreads her legs where she stands, panting.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Drugs should be wearing off soon, but she’s all yours,” Ruby says. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s lined up a set of knives from ritual to kitchen on the work desk.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina grabs her and pulls her into a kiss, “I love you so ardently.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby bumps their noses, “I know. Bon appetit.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She lets Christina do her work--her worst, really as she drinks Rodney from a bottle. There’s a swell of pride as his mate feeds from the prey brought back like a cat with a bird between its teeth. Christina feeds, and Rodney hardens. Christina feeds and Rodney strips her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her mouth is red and wet, and her pussy is pink and wet and Rod takes tastes of both. He gathers Christina’s tacky blonde hair away from her face and braids it into a rope to hold. With this, the blood spray reaches Christina’s tongue without detour. She’s lapping at the air like a snake. Except instead of testing it, she’s gorging herself. The air reeks of iron. Limbs go paler, and a body cools.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Life and death with Christina as the conduit for both. The pregnant mother feeding on the life force of another. All while the father fucks her. His hips pump against her ass. The meaty slap of their rutting fills the air with Christina’s drinking, and Rod’s grunts. He rubs a circle around her belly on his hand’s path to her clit. A shiver passes down her spine, ending in a cute butt wiggle. Rod gives each cheek a swat, laughing at her yelp. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He bites his lip through her climax. God, she’s so slick and tight, it’d be easy to slip out if she’d let him. Christina pushes her hips back, “I want you to cum in me,” she says lazily.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rod is nothing if not an obedient husband, so he speeds his thrusts and leans forward to blanket her body with his own, hands cupping her breasts so her nipples rub against his palms. It’s not enough, but then there’s friction and slickness and heat, and--oh God. He groans against her spine and feels the clench and release of his balls. It’s a big one, rope after rope filling her. He’s sure to put in another few thrusts, despite the sensitivity, to make sure there’s that overflowing drip from her cunt.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her shaking has her collapsing face first into the puddle of blood. Rod doesn’t stop cradling her. He shields her head with his bicep, wincing at the tack of blood sticking to the curls of his arm hair. They’re still joined. He wants that. Every moment is ticking downward to the tour. Then Ruby will be on a flight to Europe. From then it’s planes, trains, and automobiles. A different country each night instead of a different city. Ruby Baptiste’s greatest hits on the Parisian stage. And, her wife can’t come because she’s pregnant and they have three other children.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But, after that, they’ll be together. Their little pantheon on five-soon-to-be-six will share a bright summer villa on Lake Como. Some real rich people shit to spoil the kids with.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>One month apart can be good. It would be more stressful to have them on tour, getting all of Ruby’s energy and none of her attention.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There will be other trips to London, Paris, Milan, and Vienna. After all, they’ve all the time in the world.</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <b>Summer. 1970</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It’s not hard to miss Hippolyta Freeman sitting in a Parisian cafe with her blue hair and her beaded cosmic necklace. Across from her is Nathalie--girlfriend number three in as many years. A severe woman who looks like she belongs in a Spanish painting with some fruit. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They sit together on the patio and smoke, and watch the world go by at that leisurely pace.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Have you heard from Dee?” Ruby asks, accepting the joint offered and inhaling.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Still pounding the New York pavement,” Hippolyta’s get a far-off look. That bitter look. The one of a woman shrinking within herself. But Hippolyta’s like the walls of a house now. She shrinks and expands.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She wants to draw superheroes, but it’s a boys’ club.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nathalie snorts, “Everything is a boys club.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I told her to publish her own comics. She says she doesn’t want black science fiction to be niche. She wants to see it on the comic racks with Black Panther and Wonder Woman.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby makes a face when she finds the water she ordered to be sparkling. She understands Dee’s frustration though. Her music reaches maybe a quarter the white audience her contemporaries does. She’s been on Soul Train a dozen time. American Bandstand? Won’t return her agent’s calls.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The cheese tray arrives, and fuck, Ruby loves France. She loves not getting dirty looks for interracial kisses, and she loves the lack of interruptions. Well, except for the fun kind, like alleys to explore, and fire jugglers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s the first time she’s considered retirement. After the kids move out and it’s just her and Christina again. It would be nice. Evening strolls on the Seine, arm in arm. Matching evening shawls, and admiring the way noon light turns Christina’s eyes almost clear. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>A sort of wistful melancholy overtakes her with the sun sinking behind the cafe.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What planet did your mind just drift off to, Miss Ruby?” Hippolyta smiles.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby switches to wine, “Home. Sorry.”</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>It’s a nice house. A sturdy house with stained glass windows that bleed flowers and symbols into the carpet when the light hits it just right. The main room’s like a library, with a gallery to observe everything else up on high.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She thinks about that last part a lot. Christina and Ruby playing gods of their domain in their beautiful manor.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina bought her a crumbling house. One infested with ghosts and spiders. And Leti tamed the ghosts, and the spiders, but it, like her marriage, rotted all the way down to the foundation. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>In hindsight fucking around with the descendants of Titus Braithwhite might have been the thing to ruin her life. (Well, except for George, who is perfect in every way.) And, never in all her years, would she have guessed that Christina would be the one she’d end up keeping around.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She twists on her heel, tossing her skirt with the movement, and triumphantly, holds aloft a book.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This should help.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In the right look and with the right light, she looks angelic. All of her angles turn soft, and Leti can see why Ruby would be … attracted.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Which is why she prefers to interact with the Christina who looks like she’s broken herself off the roof of Notre Dame.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mom! We’re going to the park,” George says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Leti worries her lip. Four black kids running off to a park in this neighbourhood? Then back into 145 Sycamore without getting hassled?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t be out too late,” Christina says with a little too much authority.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, Sir,” George says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>See, Leti really doesn’t like that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You don’t get to tell my son what to do,” she fires once the door is closed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I was talking to my children, but if George sees me as an authority figure in his life then that’s his decision,” Christina smirks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’d wring her neck if she wasn’t pregnant. And Ruby’s wife. And the one who’s concocting the spell to turn a summer social into a blood bath. But, only those three reasons.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She hasn’t enjoyed playing house in Ruby’s absence. She made a promise to her sister and she plans to do right by it. She doesn’t really want to think about what kind of gender-bending they’ve gotten into to make Christina pregnant, but it’s Ruby’s baby and she did hear about the other miscarriages.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So, she suffers through shared dinners, and nights in front of the TV, and evening games of chess. Ruby’s a master of cards. Leti’s preferred battle ground is the board, and Christina isn’t half bad as an opponent.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No matter what they’re doing--even if Leti’s about to deliver the final blow--when the phone rings, Christina’s out of her chair and across the house like a bullet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sometimes one of the kids will make it to the phone first.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tell Daddy you already said I could go with Keisha to Soul Train!” Thea is demanding into the receiver while Christina hovers over her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Leti shakes her head, it’s not like Thea has to do much. She’s already got her father wrapped around her little finger.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mama, why don’t cannibals eat clowns? They taste too funny!” Christopher says during his phone time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How’s the trip? Are you getting enough sleep? Did you see Notre Dame? Is it just like Hugo described it? I’m four hundred pages into Les Mis and it’s still talking about this one priest,” Isaac says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hi,” Christina sighs into the phone.</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>“White people are fucking crazy,” Ruby says on pick up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The disoriented grumbling on the other side eventually forms the word, “Yes? And? What have they done now?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Which, to be fair, Ruby glances at the clock and counts seven hours backwards. Four AM. If she were in bed with Christina right now, she’d be wishing a swift death on whoever dared call this early in the morning. But, it’s important.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We have squatters.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Squatters?” Christina clears her throat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“In our summer home. The one on Lake Como.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You got the summer home?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes. Six rooms. Private dock. Solarium, and a terrarium. Beautiful view of the lake and the mountain.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll wire you half the money,” Christina says. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Baby, I can pay for it. The squatters on the other hand--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I fail to see the problem, Ruby, just torch them and dump them in the lake,” Christina yawns.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They use magic.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We have magical white people using our summer home as a base of operations for--” Ruby checks with the hippie looking Italian fucker with the stupid, “Hunting vampires.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Vampires?!” The bitch sounds like Ruby just met Santa Claus.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ruby, can you get a sample?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, damn, what the fuck is wrong with you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Have you seen one? I assume romantic depictions like Le Fanu’s are much less grotesque than the real thing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby pinches the bridge of her nose, “Why did I marry a white woman?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If you get me a sample then I’ll bring you a surprise of my own,” Christina’s voice drops.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby bites her lip, God damn it. How long must a woman be married before she’s so easily tempted by promises of sexual gratification?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll wear the heels.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay, deal.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Fuck.</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>Their names are Anton, Christophe (hilariously), and Thierry, and they’re from an ancient order sworn to protect the world from undead threats.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They also happen to be broke and in need of a ride to Vienna, so now they’re roadies on her tour bus.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Fantastic.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Been unseen, even on her own bus, still fits like an old pair of shoes. American, French, Italian--young white men are white men, and getting them to observe something outside their own dicks is a losing battle. But, it does work to her advantage. She can sit there pretending not to know French while she sees how the blues translates to her new Portugeuse guitar. She’s been feeling the blues lately. On the road, proving herself to a whole new continent without her strongest ally by her side. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s a strange reminder, of what was. All the universes that could have been.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christophe says something along the lines of, “It’s strange the negress is so (something) to us. Perhaps she wants to fuck you Anton.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby doesn’t fumble the note she’s making, nor does she shift her gaze to the three men. </span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I hope you got these bodies legally, but I know you didn’t,” Leti says from behind her face shield.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am a tenured biology professor,” Man-Christina says with some annoyance. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s got rubber gloves up to his elbows and is dumping a witches brew of worm stew into the open mouth of a dead bald man. Then he pulls back, leaving the table between himself and the body.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The man twitches, shrieks, and then his head explodes into a pile of black worms.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It took them weeks of magical trial and error to tame these fucking things, but it turns out a fire extinguisher works like a hot damn. Which is good. Because if these things touch either of them they’re gonna start to melt and she’s not ready for that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Which is why she thoroughly sprays William with the extinguisher, then the ground.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You got a plan B, right?” she says once she’s sure the worms are dead.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“C through Z. Then several other back ups.” He cracks his neck in annoyance, making big slashes of script on the page, “Damn, thought that would be a good binding agent.”</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>“They say this vampire lord is living in either Eastern Germany or Czecho-Slovakia,” Ruby’s voice comes through the receiver.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s become the highlight of her mornings. Updates on the grand vampiric adventure. A first she hopes to experience, once the spell is cast, their revenge made flesh, and her business here done.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And you saw one last night?” Christina clutches the covers in her free hand, anticipating.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She can feel Ruby’s expression through the phone. Trepidation covering her own excitement. The way her eyelashes fan out to hide the hunger in her own eyes. How black they look when she does that. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It didn’t look like fucking Bela Legosi,” Ruby relents.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina can see her, tucked around the phone, sticking out and blending in with all her vibrant colours and glossy skin against the backdrop of Vienna.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How many eyes?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby sighs, “Only saw the pair. How goes the Trojan horse?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina has never liked admitting to failure. It always makes her feel like an insufficient child. So, she dances around the truth, “We’re making progress. Lots of data.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Leti told me they keep exploding.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Leti has betrayed me for the last time.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t kill my sister.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina grumbles and tries a different tactic, “Do you have time to fool around?”</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Thank you, Vienna! You’ve been great!” Ruby says through a gritted smile. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They haven’t.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s more fans than she expected this deep into Europe. A lot of bored teenagers who’d rather be seeing some ugly white English boys butcher the blues. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She doesn’t bother with the encore. She’s too old to debase herself in such a way.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The vampire hunters are waiting. At her hotel room. With crossbows. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Miss Baptiste,” the one with the stupid hair (Thierry) says, “Our work, it appears, has followed us here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Something drips onto her face. Her nose fills with a sour odor. Ruby doesn’t bother looking up.</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>Christina awakens with a slash of sunlight on Saturday morning. She groans, spine popping back into place. She combs her hair away from her face, finding Leti slumped on the couch opposite.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s a foul taste in her mouth, and upon inspection, finds ink dried at the corner of her mouth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Something something.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Something is off.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She stretches. Order of operations much be followed. Where is: the notes. Notes present. Leti? Leti is present. Her stomach flutters. Right, should probably see about breakfast.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her stomach flutters again. Her hand goes to it and--oh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That’s not.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hello.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tears, unbidden, streak down her face, and she pads upstairs to use the phone in the bedroom to call Ruby.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby. Ruby didn’t call to provide updates last night. Not the most unusual. If there were no updates to give, and press tours to attend.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s just, without the phone calls it feels like a great chasm between them. That tether Ruby fashioned them all those years ago has a stranglehold on her heart.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Before that, first, she must check on the children.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thea’s tucked against her pillows, lips parted in partial speech and hair up in curlers. George fell asleep with a book perched on his face. Christina chews her lip and thinks of calling Atticus, but it would cause unnecessary drama with Leti. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Isaac always kicks the covers off when he sleeps, a habit, she’s told, he inherited from her. She fixes them before checking on Christopher, last on the hall. He’s sitting on the edge of his bed, eyes open.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nightmare?” she asks him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He shakes his head, “It’s blood not bile, it needs to be intravenous.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He rubs at his eyes, “What?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina frowns and walks to be eye level with him. His eyes are red rimmed. Her hand goes to his forehead. A bit of a temperature, “Is there something in here with you?” she asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He shakes his head, “I just know things sometimes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She nods, kissing his temple, “Go back to sleep.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The room is bigger and colder in Ruby’s absence. That old ice castle she thought she’d taken a hammer to is growing in its place. How is it that circle never breaks? Always bringing her back to how things began. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But, her bed is softer than the drafting table, and her wife’s voice is in arm’s reach.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The rounds of different operators connecting her calls takes longer in her lethargic state, but eventually the line connects to--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hello, this is the desk at the Hotel Imperial, how may I direct your call?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Room 217, Miss Ruby Baptiste please.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh. Miss Baptiste is out. She said that if someone called for her that she was taking a sightseeing trip into Germany. Schloss Lichtenstein. She is due back by Monday at the latest.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you, can you tell her to call home as soon as she returns?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course, Miss.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina flops back against the mattress.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Intravenously.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now, that is an idea.</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>This has been a trip for revelations. For one, god damn, is Europe small. Getting from one country to the other is still a shorter, back and forth, than the trip to Ardham. Second revelation, but really, more of a confirmation of her initial suspicions--okay, scratch that, revelation two is that being raised by a hustler means she still has a nose for getting hustled.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was when the one with the shitty moustache (Christophe) said the title, “La Fraternité</span>
  <span> de la Naissance” that she realized how careless she’d been. The boys announced it like they were superheroes out of one of Dee’s comic books as they fired upon whatever creature of the night had made its way into her hotel room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If they fucked up her hotel room then she was going to be seriously displeased.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Already bored with the dramatics, Ruby went to the bottle of wine left chilling and fetched a glass. The air crackled with magic and pinged with claw and crossbow bolt. One made it as far as her head before pinging uselessly off the shield burned into her breast.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A gunshot would be too loud, so she breathed the immolation spell into the language of Lilith. The other two cried out in fear as Anton burst into flames. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was then that the creature turned to her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How many do you need?” she asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Needle-like teeth pulled back into a grin, “Just the one.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Countess Rigel is much better company. She even made arrangements for cleanup with the hotel.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s a stately woman. Much shorter than expected of a vampire, but regal. She has the aquiline features of an old Roman statue. Red haired, not fair or dark, with surprisingly gentle eyes. She’s wrapped up in a travel scarf and sunglasses like some movie star as they take the 94 to Castle Lichtenstein.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Have you visited Munich?” she asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, it wasn’t on the list of tour locations.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Beautiful city. As you will see when we pass through. Not as grand as she was before the war, but still a marvel of Bavaria.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>White people are fucking crazy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You should get some rest while we drive. It’s been a long night and we still have much time to go,” Countess Rigel says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby rubs at her face, “I’m not about to leave me neck open to a vampire--no offense. And, I’ve gotten used to burning the midnight oil on this tour.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Understandable. But a lack of rest is poor for the constitution. Is it the change in atmosphere, perhaps? The mountain air is not for everyone.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, it’s not that,” Ruby says against the flat of her hand, then huffs a laugh, “My husband is a fussy sleeper. Snoring, twitching, whimpering--the whole works. It’s been driving me nuts for fifteen years.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Aah, now you can’t sleep without it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s amazing what you get used to.”</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>One could give nod to Mr. Poe. If one wanted. If one thought it prudent to give homage to a man who married his teenage cousin.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Abigail Prentiss makes steps on sturdy heels into the grand banquet hall of the Texas Lodge’s exalted Summer Gathering. Like the other women permitted, she is seen, but she is not heard. Certainly not behind the the red mask that betrays only a lopsided cupids bow of a mouth. The slight drag of her left shoe goes unnoticed under the voices of men. The stench of her, cloying and rotting like a rotten apple, is hidden beneath the baked cigar smoke and scent of spiced meat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Miles away, Letitia Lewis is playing the dangerous game of puppeteer. Keeping her eyes unfocused and her brain on the deadly edge of focus. One wrong moment. One slip of intention, and the spell can reverse. Can cut the wire between the hemispheres of her brain. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And, she does it willingly. Because she’s a damn good witch, and because those Nantucket motherfuckers snuck a cadaver onto the grounds of her home to spy on her family. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Abigail does her job. She makes it to the arm of her paramore, touching his bar wrist with her glove. She embarrasses him by leaning up to press a kiss to his cheek. A mistress in the company of wives.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It doesn’t matter, because once her skin touches his, those lopsided lips, microscopic worms pass into his flesh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Justice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A mixture of worms and blood spill forth from Abigail’s mouth, splashing the mouth of so-and-so’s wife, and then creating a chain reaction of sick. Places for the plague to get in. A locked door and a closed venue.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Leti cuts the strings and falls back against the body cradling and centering hers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shit,” she says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did it work?” Christina asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Leti nods against Christina’s baby bump. God, she’s tired.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Soft, long fingers brush past her cheek and then under her nose. Taking something wet with them. Leti licks her lips, tasting copper. She watches through lidded eyes as Christina checks her fingertips before sucking them into her own mouth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re disgusting,” Leti says, transfixed on the sight.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina’s got red on one tooth as she smiles, “The work is over, now comes the respite.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“God, I could use a good night’s fuck in my own bed.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina beams at her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not you. Shit.”</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>It’s a nine hour flight from O’Hare to Vienna International Airport and even first class grows stale with Christopher’s joke book and egg farts. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Isaac looks longingly across the aisle at Dad and Thea, currently snoring against each other. Just like any trip in first class, they have to be dressed not just well, but coordinated. At the five hour point his tie feels like a noose, and his slacks are all creased from sitting. The air stinks of cigarettes, and Dad has thrown up no fewer than three times. Currently the Gravol is working two jobs by abating the sickness and giving her and the baby some well needed rest.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He just wishes he could do the same.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey, Isaac, what do you call a belt made of watches?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Isaac groans.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A waste of time!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He fiddles with the wristwatch that has the Mark of Cain etched into it. A gift. For now. Until he can cast it for himself. Christopher’s is in a necklace because he’ll lose anything else. Isaac doesn’t know why now, but suspects it has something to do with the secret project Dad and Aunt Leti have been working on.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>More than anything, he’s just antsy to see Mama.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey Isaac. Why did the scarecrow get promoted?”</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ruby Baptiste is a patient woman. She definitely doesn’t shove her way through a crowd to get to the front, waiting for the plane to unload. It’s been a month, she’s played for the worst crowds in her life, and she’s seen the widening gyre that feeds creatures of unfathomable horrors, depths and dimensions below. Worst of all, she’s had English pub food. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s been worth it. For this light at the end of a long tunnel. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Home hammers against her ribcage in a 4-4 beat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There they are. A procession of well-dressed and well behaved children all dressed in red. Leading up the rear, their father, looking a little pale against his own burgundy suit.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mr. Davenport.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her Christina.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His face lights up as he spots her. The children take her at a run.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mama!” she braces for impact.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thea reaches her first, burrowing her face into her chest. Isaac clings to her hand while Christopher hugs the other side of her waist. She hauls him in, squashing the three of them. All three pieces of her returned safe and sound. Their weight against her is like breathing again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>William waits his turn with the bags. She looks at him over Thea’s pigtails.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mama, how do penguins build their nests?” Christopher tugs at her sleeve.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mom, make him stop,” Isaac groans.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No one wants to hear your stupid jokes, Chris,” Thea jumps in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Just like that. Peace is gone. She cocks a brow at Christina who responds by tucking her chin into her neck and making her eyes go different directions.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You better stop looking at me like that,” Ruby says, voice thick with a held in laugh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>William makes that stupid little face she hates harder.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Stop!” she pushes past the kids to nip at him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He giggles, nuzzling her cheek. His stubble scratches, a sensation she’s missed. She’s missed everything. The new cologne tickles her nose, blending with the natural tang of Christina and the musk of William. Ruby sniffs his neck and feels him do the same.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How’s baby number four?” she asks, moving her palm down his stomach.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina’s smile shines though, the shy one, and she splays her hand over Ruby’s, “She’s been kicking like crazy all day. We’ve both been anticipating getting off the plane and into your arms.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Kicking?” Ruby searches the spot, looking bizarre she’s sure.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina nods and smiles.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby kisses her again, rough, then soft.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ew,” Thea says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think we’re blocking the way,” Isaac adds.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Where are the kangaroos?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know the difference between Austria and Australia, Chris. Don’t be an asshole,” Isaac sighs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Language,” Ruby snaps.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She rests her palm at the flat of William’s back to steer him past the gates and down to baggage. Which he insists on carrying. “I’m pregnant, not invalid,” makes a passing woman do a double-take.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Bobby told me to say hi,” Ruby says once they’re on the escalator, “He and Dre are heading down to Greece to enjoy the sunshine, and the women.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, did he break up with Angela?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A year ago, Baby.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shame. I liked Angela.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby hums, tapping the rhythm to American Woman against his womb (their baby’s in there). Isaac and Thea are arguing about architecture because they could argue about anything, and her children are </span>
  <em>
    <span>nerds</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She lets them run rampant on the car ride to the hotel and at the hotel, because Christina’s been giving her </span>
  <em>
    <span>the look</span>
  </em>
  <span> since they got in the car and she can’t think about much else.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mama! Can we order room service?” Thea gets between them and the master suite.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mama!” Christopher bounces between them, “Can I have the biggest room?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Take that up with your siblings,” Christina says with some annoyance.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wait! Can we take a look at the neighbourhood around the hotel?” Isaac asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s four in the afternoon,” Christina snaps.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, but we’ve been cooped up in a plane for a day! And I wanna stretch my legs and we all have our marks on us.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby rubs her forehead, “Why are you all asking this now?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Because the minute you two go to your room we’re not gonna be able to ask you anything until tomorrow afternoon,” Thea fires back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They exchange a look. Fair. Afternoon is a modest estimate.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There’s a guide bus that you can get on and off of. Be back at the hotel before ten. If you go you are going together, and you are coming back together. Leave your papers and look like tourists and for the love of God, stay away from strangers.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We passed a book store on our way in, it’s just a few blocks away--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes. Fine. Go. The rest still applies.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thanks Dad!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Anything else?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Love you!” three voices chorus back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How did we end up with such wonderful, terrible, children?” Christina asks as soon as they’re released into the master suite. She sets about putting suitcases and hat boxes in place like she’s the damn bellhop.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby laughs and shakes her head, tossing a pillow onto the floor. She stops the puttering around the room by grabbing the pocket of her slacks and hauling Christina into position.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Missed you,” Ruby says, unzipping, “Missed this.” She’s greeted by the wettest pink dick.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She undoes the belt at the waist of her own dress and slides it down, unhooks her bra, and gives the dick a good suck before slotting it between her breasts.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>William’s first moan is breathy and feminine. His delicate hands go to her hair, using it to hold on tight rather than in place. She’s got him whining her name on every thrust. So needy. All hers. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He finishes embarrassingly fast and looking down at her through flushed cheeks as she wipes her mouth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re so beautiful,” he says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Let’s get you out of that,” she says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He fucks her raw on the edge of the bed. She uses her walls to slow him down. Forces him to stay a minute. Warm her pussy back up to the usual stretch she’s been trying to maintain with her fingers. Nothing replaces that reassuring length and girth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s like unwrapping a present, cutting Christina out of William. She shivers in the warm bathroom light. Ruby takes a step back to observe her. Nude and covered and rebirth blood and easily fifteen pounds heavier. There’s a thickness to Christina’s arms, waist, and thighs, that didn’t live there before. Her collar and ribs jut just a little less, and Ruby finds herself breathless. And, hurt, that Christina looks terrified by her verdict.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If her woman needs a proper demonstration of her desire then Ruby’s happy to provide.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re so fucking sexy,” she growls.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Later, in bed, when they’re taking a breather, Ruby rests her palm against her wife’s womb and catches up on the Chicago gossip.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And, Thea and George have a crush on the same boy at school.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That ain’t gonna end well,” Ruby says, pausing to press another kiss to Christina’s neck.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You haven’t told me about how it went for the vampires. You disappeared for four days. I called Interpol.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know, Baby, I’m sorry. I have my reasons.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I trust your reasons,” Christina says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So, did you bring the shoes?” Ruby asks with some interest.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christina grins.</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Vacations are often considered unnecessary--an extravagance, until they are actually taken. Then it becomes difficult to imagine life any other way.</p><p>The summer on Lake Como becomes more real than real life. The privacy affords them all the time to spend, regardless of shape or form. And, the children get a good boost of melanin from spending all day every day on the lake. The fresh air bolsters Thea's confidence, and fuels what is probably the final growth spurt. Up like a weed until she's eye level with her mother, and sporting the same lovely figure.</p><p>Christina, on the other hand, looks like a Victorian ghost wandering around the shade of the house in her nightgown. She's sullen. Ruby having taken the keys to the boat after Christina flipped it while testing its speed on the lake.</p><p>"Again! Again!" a wind whipped Christopher cried.</p><p>"Invulnerable or not, we're not treating the baby like a Polaroid," Ruby said with no room to argue.</p><p>So Christina haunts the house in the evenings and plays badminton and squash with the children during the day. And, at night, she grumbles about her back and her ankles, and how wretched Ruby is for doing this to her.</p><p>"Once. You did this to me three times," Ruby says with some amusement, as she rubs coconut oil onto her wife's breasts and belly. They're already plenty hydrated, this is for her now.</p><p>"Which is why you are a saint for staying married to me," Christina says, looking very much like a petulant child.</p><p>"Mmhm, and for introducing you to a vampire."</p><p>"A woman vampire."</p><p>"Mmmhm. And for fucking your ass so good that you came like a geyser," Ruby adds.</p><p>Christina has nothing to say that but a bit lip that Ruby kisses.</p><p>"It's paradise here," she says.</p><p>Their room gets a view of the moon illuminating the crests of the lake, and the mountains beyond it. It's so close that the rocking of waves lulls them to sleep. But, the shorebirds are early to wake them.</p><p>As the summer continues, Christina has more dizzy spells. She almost faints on the badminton court, and doesn't return after being taken to bed.</p><p>Ruby's composing a song on the piano when she hears the clatter from their bedroom.</p><p>It's like a dark mirror of their lovemaking. Christina red from the waist down, blood pooling out into the sheets and mattress. Sweat glossy on her face and skin waxy.</p><p>The nearest hospital is too far, so they call for the doctor. Children caught between inaction and panic.</p><p>It's Thea's clear head that pulls through. She makes the call.</p><p>The Countess Rigel, despite her condition, spent a great portion of life as a Bavarian midwife. Her skin prickles and her eyes grow on arrival, but she is prepared with a kit and a firm hand.</p><p>"It will be okay," she says.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>It was only a matter of time.</p><p> </p><p>In another universe, her children are short two parents and a baby sister.</p><p>In another universe, help didn't come in time, and Christina and Number Four bled out in the Lake Como summer rental. Death, like The Devil, is one of very specific contracts. And, just because Christina cannot be harmed, and just because she cannot age does not mean that he can't sneak in and cut the line of her fate. Their fate lines. The deal Ruby struck when she bound them. A bond that's only built yarn into steel with their centuries together. The minute Christina Braithwhite's heart stops beating is the minute Ruby's heart mirrors it. And, vice versa.</p><p>This universe, best of its kind, tells Death, <em>not today</em>.</p><p>Her name is Violet. She's six pounds, five ounces, dark skinned, and she's perfect. Ruby's always been on the other side of the birthing table, too occupied with the act of creating to really appreciate the intellectual exercise of it.</p><p>Men have it so easy. Easier, anyway. There was nothing easy about watching Christina fight the reaper at the same time she was ushering their daughter into the world.</p><p>Ruby kisses the wedding ring of a limp hand and whispers a prayer of recovery into the skin.</p><p>Not today.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Listen, I wrote the ending in the same five hour period SO SORRY THINGS GET CONTRIVED I AM TIRED AND THIS CHAPTER IS SO SO SO LONG.</p><p>Please let me know your thoughts. Your theories. Your wishes. Please don't tell me to update soon, I just poured a lot of time and effort into a 20k chapter and being told to do that weekly makes me cry.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. 1970s part 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Road trips, beach houses, birthdays, ascensions, and old gods.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Me: okay, no more 20k chapters<br/>Me: (writes a 26k chapter) cool cool cool cool</p><p>This samples HP more than other chapters have up until this point.</p><p>Some big old warnings for this one: it has some shitty racism and homophobia includes the f slur, it also discusses colonialism, slavery, and colonial attitudes.</p><p>EDIT:</p><p>So, upon some awareness raising, I have edited some of William's racist rant from the beginning. I didn't have a sensitivity reader look over this chapter on account of its size, so I'm always open to being called on blind spots. I'm trying to walk the line of giving dead evil racists sufficient teeth without causing hurt to people who are reading this story as an escape. And, I never want anyone reading this to come away feeling bad about their bodies because of it. </p><p>I'll also expand on the warnings here.</p><p>The first piece of this story is a racist and homophobic rant made by the ghost of (the real) William Davenport. I wanted to write him as the kind of disgusting man who would experiment on people the way we saw in Episode 3 (and the Male Karen butler from the book). His thoughts in no way reflect my own. </p><p>Later on in the story, the kids come across some white teenagers who are casually racist and homophobic as privileged white young adults still are, and were in the 1970s. </p><p>There are multiple conversations about the slave trade. One of which is spurred on by a documentary that uses racist and colonial themes and language. This is similar to the museum scenes in episode 4.</p><p>Christina has racist thoughts about fish people.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Rewind: 1954</b>
</p><p>William Davenport supposes, in hindsight, that he should have paid more attention to those Sam Spade pictures about dangerous dames. Trouble. They’re always reeking of trouble like they stepped in it. Christina Braithwhite in her red vamp dress and her matching lipstick fit the bill. He entertained her anyway. She had something of a reputation, one in the form of lack of one. Sam Braithwhite’s stuck up bitch of a daughter. The holy grail of potential wives for Order suckers looking to move up. To try and shoot their shot in the roulette of being the newest link in the Braithwhite family line. Earning a place at the Ardham table and a chance to eat up all those old family secrets. </p><p>Her moves were forward, if a little clumsy. He huffed a laugh when her eyes got bigger at his signet ring than at the lips he brushed against a bony knuckle.</p><p>She’s pretty. Sexy even. Frigid, but wives are supposed to be. Warmth is for whores and girlfriends. Still, he could fuck some white babies into her and have his legacy secured. But, she’s not his type. Too skinny. Too mouthy. Perfect pedigree. </p><p>She tried it anyway, asked about magic in one breath, then offered to fuck him in the next. The terms of the transaction in all but black ink pen.</p><p>“Jesus,” he laughed, “You’re forward.”</p><p>“I know what I want,” she said hotly.</p><p>He went soft before he could cum, because despite plush lips and a sweet tongue, she sucked dick like it was a punishment.</p><p>“Jesus, Sweetheart, if you’re gonna treat it like a death sentence don’t even bother,” he pulled his cock back in his pants, looking at her. Small and mortified with smudged lipstick.</p><p>“I can do better.”</p><p>“Look, I don’t give two shits about the no cunts rule in The Order. Come by the office tomorrow and I’ll give you a demonstration, just, don’t fucking try that again.”</p><p>Which was his second mistake.</p><p>Christina took to magic like a duck to water. Must be in the pedigree, he decided. That was all. </p><p>Still, when she made butterflies explode out of the wallpaper and fly in figure eights around her head, William felt something. Maybe love, maybe resentment.</p><p>They were the same, right?</p><p>She was bright. Exceptional. And so lonely. Turns out children were like plants or other living things. They needed to be tended to. Christina had withered in neglect, but bloomed under the slightest care. Her skinny shoulders threw themselves back not just with pride and posture. There was confidence between those sad tits now. She wasn’t just pretty or sexy. She was cute. Especially when she flashed those flat teeth and let her eyes get big.</p><p>Loving her came like a thief in the night. Still, even when he caught her with a kiss he felt no stirring below the belt.</p><p>“I thought you didn’t want me to do that,” she told him with a sucked lip and crossed arms.</p><p>“You’re right. Sorry,” he said.</p><p>The next time he kissed her it was on the cheek because Lancaster was leering in her direction.</p><p>Seamus Lancaster was a prick. A smelly unwashed dick of an Irish caveman. Fucking class climber who thought his lack of eyebrows gave him some kind of entry to whiteness. True whiteness. The Irish were billy clubs, not men. And Lancaster had better watch the way he spoke about ambitions. Tools ought to know their place.</p><p>He had his own plans. Plans spanning time and space with the aid of Hiram, and of changing suits of skin, with Christina. </p><p>“If I wear a man’s skin I can finally take over my Lodge,” Christina said.</p><p>William laughed openly at her, “I offer you the ability to shape shift and you still just want to be Daddy’s boy, Christina? Really. I thought you had grown past that.”</p><p>She swallowed, looking again, like a chastised little girl. Her comments were getting more irritating. More of that repetition. Grabbing magic for pure magic, showing The Order, showing her father, that is could be used for so much more.</p><p>This was another mistake. He forgot. He gave information, freedom, and affection freely to a starved animal. And then he pulled his hand away.</p><p>Of course she would use his body to make her own dreams come true.</p><p>As it turned out, he wasn’t her type either. She liked more meat on her bones. Not, like, a woman with hips, but a full-bodied black woman with great tits. Tits she used his dick to fuck. William had crossed to the dark side to see what the fuss about black pussy was, but not like Christina. Christina dove into a different colored cunt every night of the week like she was catching up on twenty-five sex free years. Yes, she was a dyke, but even who she fucked still felt like another fight against her father. So superior to the old man. She had to prove him wrong with his dick.</p><p>And he was the fool being bled out in white sheets for Christina Braithwhite’s dreams.</p><p>Those hypothetical white babies they’d bear together became mulattos she bred with the Hoodoo witch she ended up marrying. Ones whose nightmares she kissed away with his lips. Her children were his children, and William was just a memory trapped in a wallpaper cocoon.</p><p>Except, those children. Despite the miscegenation, those children were perfect pedigree magic users. It bled out of their fingers without so much as an incantation. And, it took him three tries, but he made contact. The boy with Christina’s face and the tortoiseshell curls. He didn’t look past William’s ghost. He saw him, and he listened.</p><p>Not that time mattered to a ghost, but being heard for the first time in over a decade made William realize how much he had to say.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <b>Rewind: 1925</b>
</p><p> </p><p>The Baptistes are a godly folk. They go to church on Sundays, volunteer their time to the poor, and thank God for their dinner each night.</p><p>Which is why the second sight is seen as a gift from Him. After all, if it weren’t a gift from God, then it’d be some Devil magic, and the Baptistes did not let The Devil into their home.</p><p>Even those who crossed the street, fearing the beast, when they saw the Baptistes (like the Bishop, or the clucking church wives) would come to Josephine when fear took them something terrible.</p><p>“I need to know, I need to see,” they would say.</p><p>And Josephine would lead them into the other room. The room where she spoke to the spirits.</p><p>Eloise grew up watching money change hands this way, and for her part, kept it in the family. The money, and the ghosts she saw drifting around the house.</p><p>When she grows up and has girls of her own, she keeps an eye on them. They don’t talk to imaginary friends or know things they couldn’t--shouldn’t, they don’t star in open doorways like there’s something to see. So, Eloise keeps their minds easy, tells them it’s all about reading a person. That’s why having psychic readings in a hair salon is a safe bet. You don’t need tea leaves or cards to know someone’s problems. The added pageantry is fun, but talking to ghosts doesn’t involve howling wind or flickering lights. The dead are much more boring.</p><p>Her girls are lucky. They don’t see the grotesque figures of the men torn down in their prime by police bullets, or hidden to rot in basements.</p><p>It gives her pause though, how fire always seems to grow when Ruby’s near. Something worth keeping an eye on, but likely nothing.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <em> Dear Theodosia, what to say to you? </em>
</p><p>
  <em> You have my eyes </em>
</p><p>
  <em> You have your mother's name </em>
</p><p>
  <em> When you came into the world, you cried and it broke my heart </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I'm dedicating every day to you </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Domestic life was never quite my style </em>
</p><p>
  <em> When you smile, you knock me out, I fall apart </em>
</p><p>
  <em> And I thought I was so smart </em>
</p><p>
  <em> You will come of age with our young nation </em>
</p><p>
  <em> We'll bleed and fight for you, we'll make it right for you </em>
</p><p>
  <em> If we lay a strong enough foundation </em>
</p><p>
  <em> We'll pass it on to you, we'll give the world to you </em>
</p><p>
  <em> And you'll blow us all away </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Someday, someday </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Yeah, you'll blow us all away </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Someday, someday </em>
</p><p>Dear Theodosia, Hamilton</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <b>Summer. 1973</b>
</p><p>A very unfortunate thing happens to one Isaac Avery Braithwhite in the summer of 1973. Isaac was born with neutral odds. First born son of two first-born daughters. Unmistakably black, and according to the nurses, the most charming little man they had ever seen. He’s not sure what or why, but he has always been all-too-aware of how he is being perceived at every moment of his life. So, as a little black boy, he dresses like a professor. Suspenders, and glasses, and bowties, because it’s less threatening. He talks white, even to his black friends. Even at his black church and his black school. He never raises his voice or his fists, and he chooses passive sports. Track and field, and swimming, as his fitness courses. He makes friends with boys who are not too popular, and not too rowdy. Nerdy, quiet kids like himself, but ones with manners. Not the boys who use their brains like their fists.</p><p>All of this preparation, all this hard work, is rendered useless when he wakes up in June as a black man. Not just an average black man. A six foot five man with massive hands and feet. His arms are long and gangly like his father’s. His widow’s peak took this moment to sharpen the contour of his face, making him look even more gaunt with the lost baby fat.</p><p>It’s the most ridiculous growth spurt known to man, and he’s frankly, offended by it.</p><p>Last week, peach fuzz moustache, today bigfoot.</p><p>He’s surprised he didn’t rip his pajamas in the spurt, but they’ll need to go shopping immediately. He puts on his loosest T-Shirt and a pair of formerly too-long sweatpants and promptly smacks his forehead on the doorframe. He holds his throbbing forehead as he descends the stairs. </p><p>“Good Lord!” Mama drops the phone at the sight of him.</p><p>“What is it?” Daddy pokes her head out of the kitchen then drinks him in with a pale delight. “Did you try your hand at a growth spell, Son?”</p><p>“No! I--maybe? It’s weird!”</p><p>Ruby laughs and shakes her head, “You know, the same thing happened to Marvin right around your age. One minute, little boy, the next he was looking like someone’s dad.”</p><p>“Can you reverse it?” he asks, looking to each of them.</p><p>“Puberty reversal is beyond even my powers,” Dad’s hand comes up to stroke his cheek, “Astonishing.”</p><p>“What?” he asks.</p><p>“You look like your grandfather.”</p><p>She doesn’t say it in a mean way. He would know. Daddy’s pretty transparent in her distaste for men in general, and her ancestors even more. She just thought she could escape genetics with sheer force of will, he thinks. </p><p>“Don’t listen to her, you look like me. Not some dead racist,” Mama says, then she looks down, “Damn, time to get you some new clothes.”</p><p>“We can go this afternoon,” Daddy says.</p><p>This is when Vi clears her throat loudly, demanding Mama’s attention back to her. Isaac strides across the space to pick her up and blow a raspberry against her cheek. Violet does not squeal, that would be undignified.</p><p>The breakfast bell rings.</p><p>Thea is glaring at him from across the table like he chose today to become a giant just to spite her. He doesn’t want to be this big either. He’s sorry that he has testosterone and that she peaked at five foot nine. She would complain if she were taller and he knows it. Christopher is just grinning, “How dusty are the tops of the shelves, Bro?”</p><p>“Spotless,” he replies as James passes.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Being a black man changes the way people look at him. But, at least Mr. Rothschild still greets him warmly.</p><p>“A fine suit for a fine young man,” is all he says before grabbing the tape measure and pulling garments off hangers. Daddy’s in her own suit, the man faced one and the pinstripes. She’s relaxed at least, hands tucked into pockets as she observes the fitting.</p><p>“Give him another in a size up, I expect him to fill out even more this summer,” she says.</p><p>Mr. Rothschild nods, puttering away with his measuring tape to grab some more garments. Isaac sweats under his father’s pale gaze.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” he says.</p><p>“What for?” she asks, joining him in the mirror to check her own tie.</p><p>“For… being a man. I was trying really hard not to be,” he says, feeling foolish at the admission.</p><p>Dad meets his gaze in the mirror, brows always paler as a man, but unmistakably concerned. She takes a shuddering exhale. The fever dream of it all becomes most pronounced when she turns to him and he’s still taller. He can see the top of his father’s head. His dad, who he’s spent his whole life looking up at--up to.</p><p>“You need not apologize, Isaac. You’re the best man I know and I’m proud to be your father. You are the exception to your sex.”</p><p>“I know you never wanted a son,” rushes out of Isaac’s mouth and he can’t look at Dad because if he does he’s gonna cry and today’s already been too much without crying in front of Mr. Rothschild.</p><p>When he was six, he got an ear infection that boiled his brain and made him cough so bad he thought he was gonna die. It’s not like he had any reference for that level of pain or sick at the time. Every breath felt like a fight, and every waking moment was misery. He does remember the worried hum of Mama’s voice, and of Daddy taking him into the bath to bring his fever down. Sitting there despite the cold and the ice, holding Isaac’s shuddering, overheated body to his own, and hushing his tears. He remembers that tired, terrified look in Daddy’s eyes. He recognizes it now before being pulled into the same kind of hug. One he leans into, despite the new height difference, and pushes his nose against his father’s shoulder.</p><p>“I never wanted a son,” Daddy confirms, rubbing his thumb along the back of Isaac’s fresh hair cut, “And I’m grateful to have been gifted the ones I have. I would die for you and your brother without hesitation.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>What started as a first out of curiosity became one in many firsts.</p><p>Maybe that’s the appeal. Regardless of how many times they do it, there are always variables to how the evening ends, and they’re the ones rolling the dice for a success. Playing the advantages they have. Looks, money, charm.</p><p>College girls are a danger, because they might be a student at the University of Chicago, and they might recognize Professor Davenport as the man who approached them with an offer of a threesome. Or they might recognize Rod, the other point of the proposed triangle, as that man who sits in on Davenport’s lectures sometimes.</p><p>The girl they’ve got cozied into a booth is named Cass, and she’s a pretty young thing with full lips, dark, hair, and dark eyes.</p><p>“Okay, yeah,” she says, pounding back her drink and shaking her head.</p><p>They take her to a hotel room. It adds to the seediness of the deed. Part of the fantasy is the grimy circumstances.</p><p>Cass is the kind of girl who knows what she’s doing, because she has their dicks out of their flies in a matter of seconds. One in each hand, she takes turns stroking one while sucking the other. It’s evidently not her first rodeo because she hollows her cheeks on William’s cock, then rubs her tongue along the base of Rod’s. He grunts pulling back. William smirks because <em> ever the four minute man </em>. William rubs a streak of pre-cum along her lips. He makes sure to get the last drops in her tongue, before flipping her over and probing her ass with a thumb and her pussy with a finger.</p><p>The main event is stuffing both of their dicks into a snug pussy and stretching it out over enough rounds. Training Cass is fun. Rewarding. Taking part in depravity instead of creation. Being the devil luring this girl into their realm. </p><p>Because burying himself to the hilt in Ruby? The most divine sensation in the world. Rod’s said the same about the snug haven that is Christina’s cunt. His hiding hole. The spot where they made a child.</p><p>Four children is enough. That’s as many as the Queen of England has, and any more would result in schism and civil war.</p><p>Unless, there were, say, unknown bastards to add to the occasion some time in the future. Just the right wrench in the plans to throw the children. The legitimate Braithwhite-Baptiste heirs how fragile their claim to the throne can be. </p><p>Rod works as the anchor dick, lying still as Cass mounts him, then William mounts her. The friction comes from William’s dick, wet and velvety, frotting against him, both of them. Cass moans, and Rod’s glad she’s not facing him, because he rolls his eyes. Girls these days feel so obligated to overdo it with the moaning. He can tell she’s faking. In his irritation, he thrusts up, which gets a genuine mewl. William meets Rod’s eye over her shoulder and understands all with just the look. He reaches down, pulling at the girl’s clit with his thumb, while making his thrusts count. Hard, ball slapping thrusts. Cass’s moan frequency deepens, and Rod feels her get wetter and her walls begin to flutter. Fuck. He reaches up to play with her tits.</p><p>It’s William, with his mussed up her, and his pretty, perfect mouth, that Rod is looking at when he cums. </p><p>There’s nothing quite as satisfying as leaving Cass’s cunt an overflow of seed. Properly bred and left on the bed, with a wad of money on the nightstand. Rod pauses, with the polaroid to take a picture of her like this, for the wall. A souvenir for them, money for her. Just in case she misconstrues the action as anything related to love.</p><p>It must not be mistaken. Ruby and Christina are making love to each other. The extra pussy in the room is part of the game.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“Do you think Thea’s ready?” Christina asks, in a rare moment of letting her projection of confidence drop.</p><p>They’re in the bath and it’s only Tuesday. It’s a glorious part of having teenage children. They can be trusted to spend time in their respective tasks while Mommy and Daddy take a bath together. And, at three, Violet’s sleeping through the night more than her brothers and sister. It doesn’t stop them from bothering to keep an ear open to the nursery. </p><p>“She’s been fluent in Adamic since she was ten. She’s even added syntaxes to the language of Lilith. Me plus you made powerful babies.”</p><p>“It’s not her power I doubt, it’s her constitution,” Christina sighs, slipping further into the water and resting her head on Ruby’s breast.</p><p>Ruby sculpts Christina a beard out of bubbles, giggling as she does so. “I think you’d be a handsome sea captain.”</p><p>“I’ll keep that under advisement,” but she cracks a smile.</p><p>“Ruby sighs, “She’s always done the right thing when the chips are down. Saved your life, if you’ll remember.”</p><p>“I’d never forget. Part of me wonders...” she hums.</p><p>“What?” water slops as Ruby adjusts them again.</p><p>“It’s like Violet was made from the very tether that binds us, and by removing her from my body … well that’s what almost killed me.”</p><p>“Mmhm, or, more likely, you inherited womanhood problems from a long line of mothers who died in childbirth, and we failed to have a doctor on hand.”</p><p>Christina glares at her from under a sharp brow. Ruby kisses it until the frown goes away. Christina meets her lips on the next one.</p><p>“She is something,” Ruby says when they separate, “So independent. The others were so clingy at this age. Especially Isaac.”</p><p>Christina smiles, “Isaac is still clingy,” a heavy sigh escapes her, “And massive.”</p><p>“Gonna be another target on his back,” Ruby says, “Sorry. I shouldn’t say it, but I can’t not think about it.”</p><p>“Every short man with something to prove is gonna start taking shots at him. He needs to learn how to fight. I hate telling Atticus when he’s right.”</p><p>“Well, broken clocks.”</p><p>Christina tips back to look at Ruby. Each seeing up the other’s nose at such an ugly angle.</p><p>“I think you’d look good with a fu manchu,” Christina says, grabbing a handful of bubbles.</p><p>“Don’t you dare, Christina Baptiste,” Ruby warns with the warmth of a laugh in her voice. The ensuing bubble fight turns dirty when Ruby pushes two fingers, up to the knuckle, into her wife. Christina gasps, eyes going wide in both arousal and betrayal as a pile of bubbles smacks her in the face. She tastes like floral soap as Ruby licks the roof of her mouth and sucks on her tongue. There’s a practiced ease to the way her knees hook over Ruby’s hips, urging those fingers deeper. But, Ruby pulls back, just enough to hover over Christina with a smug look. Her thumb brushes circles around her clit, teasing back and forth. Christina bumps upwards with a searching mouth, and Ruby denies her again.</p><p>“Ruby!” she whines.</p><p>“Uh-uh,” Ruby says with a laugh.</p><p>The two fingers inside Christina slow to <em> not enough </em>and the thrashing wail it gets her is so delicious. Turning this monstrous, beautiful beast into something both tamed and untamed. Always at Ruby’s hand and foot. Where she is. Where she will be until Death finds his way into their bones, or until existence blinks first. It’s hard to say which will happen.</p><p>It is assured that Christina will break composure first. It’s a simpering, “Ruby, please,” that gets Ruby to return to ravishing her mouth. She presses her fingers deeper, and brushes her clit, just like so.</p><p>Christina’s hips jitter with her orgasm. Toe curling and warm. Ruby makes sure to nip her lower lip into stung before pulling away to rest their foreheads together.</p><p>“What were we talking about?” she asks.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>At seventeen, Thea Lilth Braithwhite feels like she’s standing on the world’s highest diving board. Except instead of the pool at the bottom, it’s a series of choices. The future. Her future. Every step forward after this big leap, is informed by what she does now. College. Boys. Her debut into polite society. Her first spell. It’s all coming up so fast and she already finds herself nostalgic for the dog days of listening to records in Keisha’s room while they did their hair. Or, of taking up an entire theatre row to watch the most recent beach movie.</p><p>School. She sighs. She has a high score on the SATs and rich parents, so all gates have opened to her. Harvard, Howard, Brown, Georgetown.</p><p>She should pick what <em> she wants </em> but what Thea wants is to follow James Booker to the ends of the Earth. (Boys.) James has offers from other top colleges. The University of Texas is offering him a full ride to come and play football for the Longhorns. The University of Chicago is making similar bids. He’s going to be a star quarterback, she just knows it. Not just because she’s in love with him. Because she’s his best friend and she knows he works harder than everyone else.</p><p>Thea wants to be the girl on the sidelines that James looks to before he wins a game. She wants to be the girl he sweeps off her feet. Her friends bug her about it, want to know when she and James are finally gonna go steady.</p><p>She’d also like to know, but she also has a knowledge no one else does. A secret.</p><p>See, James a handsome, all-American football star. He’s like a black Superman, with that charming smile, and the curl that always seems to sit just above his eyebrows. Mr. Metropolis, George calls him. </p><p>George is the secret.</p><p>Their dynamic trio turned to a duo with Thea as the satellite that day she spotted James kissing George over his comic book in the Sophomore year.</p><p>So, what she should do, what she <em> will want </em>to do in the future, is go to law school. Get her degree in law, challenge the bar, and become a civil rights lawyer. She wants to become a justice, and to protect black people--Asian people, gay people, from unjust laws. She wants to be a bastion of American freedom. So unlike fucking Richard Nixon. </p><p>But that doesn’t make the selection any easier. Harvard is Harvard Law. A golden ticket to any firm she wants. There’s the romance of the New England school with its history and fall colours. But, Howard is a black school. One, where, ideally, she won’t be fighting an uphill battle against an administration that tolerates her at best.</p><p>Or, is that the coward’s way out? Aunt Leti says that if no one is willing to stand up and challenge a system of injustice--even when it’s hard, then it will never change. What would taking the easy route say about her?</p><p>Mama and Daddy are all about easy roads and shortcuts. Daddy would bulldoze a swamp for a better parking lot, and Mama has used magic to win over the last duvet set from a bulldog looking woman at Sak’s. </p><p>Like, Aunt Leti, they are rebels in their own way. Daddy doesn’t talk a lot about Grandpa Braithwhite--it took a look at the family tree to find out his name was Samuel--it’s more in what she doesn’t say that fills in all the ways she’s rebelled. Aside, from, you know, being a woman living as a man.</p><p>Mama is an exalted goddess now, but from the stories she tells about her youth, she spent a good chunk of it having every door slammed in her face. Her thriving existence, as Ruby Baptiste, a woman with eight Grammys and her own TV special, is rebellion.</p><p>Thea spreads her acceptance letters out in front of her. The black letterhead somehow blurry under the warm lamp light.</p><p>“Do you wanna know which one you’re gonna pick?” a voice comes from the door.</p><p>“I left that closed for a reason, Christopher!” she emphasizes the end of his name.</p><p>He’s got Violet clinging to his leg from his spot against the doorway, “Vi wanted to come and see you though.”</p><p>Thea makes a noise. Violet. The little sister she’s always wanted. Except, she’s seventeen and Vi is three. It’s not like they can do each other’s hair and gossip about boys.</p><p>She’s not blaming Mama and Daddy for it. (She remembers how hard Daddy cried after losing the first one. And the third. The ones she thought they were gonna keep.) It’s just too late for that now.</p><p>It isn’t too late to scoop up her baby sister and seat her on her lap though.</p><p>“What do you think, Vi-Vi?” she bounces her.</p><p>Violet frowns, looking just like Mama when she does. She’s considering it, she really is, looking from one letter to another.</p><p>“Top left,” Christopher stage whispers.</p><p>“Ugh! Chris!”</p><p>“What?! You’re so dramatic, Thea, you always take too long to decide even when you know what you want. It’s like, how you always order Hawaiian Vanilla but have to sample every other flavour.”</p><p>She rubs her temples. Violet tugs on her shirt, other hand holding the Harvard acceptance letter.</p><p>“Yes, thank you Vi-Vi.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Since time indeterminate, catching Dad reclined on the sofa, reading has been akin to seeing a solo water buffalo drinking at the watering hole. In that, it’s a sight taken advantage of by predators.</p><p>Predators being the three--now four, of them.</p><p>It’s the only thing Isaac considers himself competitive about. Thea can have her stupid Debutante Ball preparations with Dad, and Christopher can have baseball. But, cuddling with Daddy on a rainy day is <em> his thing </em>.</p><p>On socked foot he approaches. Dad has his glasses on his forehead and his legs crossed at the ankle, some student’s paper pinched between finger and thumb. </p><p>Isaac stands at the side, staring down at the sofa, and his father with new trepidation.</p><p>See, his favourite spot is with his ear to his father’s heart, tucked against his chest. It’s the perfect angle for long fingers to play with the soft hairs at the back of his neck. </p><p>It's just that now, he looks at the open space on the couch and it used to be enough for the two of them. Now it's a whole lot smaller. Dad looks up at him, then at the couch. </p><p>The maneuvering required for their combined twelve and half feet to fit the couch is a bit of a feat, but through a lot of overlapping, they do manage to fit. </p><p>It could be worse. Dad's legs are over his thighs, and he's got his head squashed against the cushions, neck bent to crane onto Dad's chest. </p><p>He immediately has a cramp in his knee. Dad keeps adjusting his hips, but both of them are much too stubborn to admit to it. </p><p>It's only when Mama, walking by, pauses to let out a delighted belly laugh. "Oh, I gotta get the camera. Stay like that."</p><p>Two sets of offended eyes gaze back at her. </p><p>"I don't see what's so amusing," Christina says.</p><p>Isaac wiggles a foot as if to prove how fine this position is for the both of them.</p><p>Mama returns with a camera and Violet tottering behind her as she pauses to take a polaroid. </p><p>“Nothing funny at all,” Mama laughs.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“Is Tic coming? I won’t be mad. I just wanna know.”</p><p>It’s a trap, and Christina knows it’s a trap. </p><p>“There are no overlapping days of your visits.”</p><p>Leti huffs against the receiver, “I suppose it will be a good way for George to spend time with his father, since he refuses to visit him in Florida.”</p><p>“But he visits his grandfather?” surprises Christina.</p><p>“I don’t know if it’s because Montrose has mellowed with age, or because he lets him get away with … whatever kids get up to in San Francisco.”</p><p>Christina bites down the response, <em> “Yeah, because what could a bisexual teenage boy get away with in San Francisco?” </em> Because Leti is even less responsive to that truth than Atticus. Sure, she doesn’t have a problem with gay people. Doesn’t have a problem with them getting rights. Her son though? George is perfect and <em> safe </em>as a straight boy.</p><p>And, it’s not a chip to play or her secret to tell, so she switches ears on the receiver as the air pressure shift from the door opening alerts her to Ruby getting home.</p><p>“He got married again, didn’t he?” Leti asks in Christina’s silence.</p><p>Yes, and no. Legally, yes. Mirana was about to be deported, and even though they had only been dating a few weeks, Tic married her. It was a small courthouse ceremony that her family couldn’t make it to, so he didn’t invite his.</p><p>She’s had a few phone vents with Diana over it. They really bonded with that rage.</p><p>There are plans for an elaborate wedding. One that the children can be involved in. Because there are children. Because it’s Atticus. Two. Xiomara and Diego. Because that’s how second marriages are. Allegedly. Christina wouldn’t know. It’s true, the relaxation about names after a point. She and Ruby agonized over Thea and Isaac’s names, then just gave in and named the B-Team: Christina Junior and Ruby Junior.</p><p>Speaking of Ruby and Ruby Junior, her wife wanders in with Violet in arms. She mouths, <em> “Leti?” </em>and Christina nods, rolling her eyes. She finds herself admiring them, with their mother(father)-daughter hairstyles and nails. They’ve got bouncy, defined curls and acid green nails that match Ruby’s dress. Green reminds her more of the War of the Roses rather than Rome, but it still makes her look like an Empress.</p><p>“Christina?” Leti repeats.</p><p>“Sorry, Ruby’s home,” Christina says because her brain always needs to catch up after getting the full brilliant beam of Ruby Braithwhite.</p><p>It gets a chuckle from Leti at least, “Tell her I say hi,” Christina says, “Hi,” as she leans out for a kiss. Ruby meets her lips, but Violet shakes her head.</p><p>“No kiss for Mummy?” Ruby bounces their youngest.</p><p>Violet blinks at Christina. Christina blinks back. They have their own communication. They shared a body for nine months. Love did grow in that hostage situation, but neither are particularly sentimental about it. Violet is Ruby’s baby girl, and it suits them all just fine.</p><p>“Yes, he’s with someone,” Christina sighs.</p><p>“How long?” Leti asks.</p><p>“Two years. Children are involved.”</p><p>Ruby does a double take and makes a cutting motion with her hand.</p><p>“He has other children and he can’t be bothered to come up and visit his son?!” Leti’s voice raises. Christina winces, looking to Ruby for an out.</p><p>“Christopher, put that fire extinguisher down!” Ruby throws her voice to yell.</p><p>“I have to go,” Christina says quickly, “We’ll go over the details next week.”</p><p>Then she hangs up.</p><p>“Thank you.”</p><p>Ruby grabs her waist and slides a hand down to Christina’s ass. Their eyes meet. The dark reds and browns of Ruby’s eyes illuminated by the stark light this window gets. The same light that she says makes Christina look a little closer to heaven than Earth.</p><p>“Hi,” Ruby says, batting her lashes.</p><p>“Hi. Your new hair is lovely.”</p><p>“Gross,” Violet says, squirming to be let down. Ruby lets her.</p><p>Approaching footsteps are followed by approaching words, “Can you guys stop using me as a scapegoat for pulling the chute on phone conversations?”</p><p>Christopher says this, dead serious, while wearing a cowboy hat and a clown nose. Violet tugs at his hand on her way out the door.</p><p>Ruby is better at hiding a laugh than Christina, but she’s facing the other way.</p><p>“Of course, sorry Son.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Mama and Daddy are dressed like a Norman Rockwell painting, Americana personified, for the road trip. Sunglasses, hats, and breezy summer clothes. </p><p>The list is a carry-over from the Freeman family. Second and third checks have been made for potion stocks, swim suits, and hair care products. Things that would be inconvenient to replace on the Jersey shore. </p><p>Just getting all six family members into the car and buckled up before nine AM is an exercise in herding cats. They’ll all be buckling up when Thea announces she has to pee, then it’s a domino effect.</p><p>They’re finally leaving the fucking driveway at ten. Which means either rolling into the beach house near midnight, or the more likely situation of finding somewhere to sleep in <em> Ohio </em>. Christina grinds her teeth behind William’s amicable features. </p><p>Ruby senses the irritation and stretches her arm across the seat to scratch soothingly at William’s neck. It;s going to be a long twenty-four hours, and the thought of wearing her man suit for all of them sets her teeth on edge. She’s grown soft, accustomed to only wearing William for the few hours she’s at work, or if it’s needed. Things like bank trips, or social events, where Mr. Baptiste is expected to make an appearance. </p><p>The last few dates they’ve been on have been as Rod and Christina. A pair that gets them more hostility than Ruby and William. A white man with a black wife can be seen as understandable by other white men. A white woman with a black man? That’s a threat to the fabric of society. The matching wedding rings are just more damning. Race traitors with minds that can’t be changed. They’ve already bought in and burned their receipts.</p><p>It works for the gossip around the neighbourhood. That strange man seen in the Davenports’ yard. The man who got the police called to their home. Why, that’s Rodney. Yes, Mr. Davenport’s sister, the frail looking widow. She’s found new love with a friend of her sister-in-law’s. Thank you for your concern.</p><p>But, it’s Chicago, and she can follow the cop car and set it and its contents on fire. It’s her home turf, not a blind spot. Not like Cleveland, or Pennsylvania.</p><p>And, the car is as close to a safe house for wife and babies one through four.</p><p>It pisses her off to no end. Being a father. The greatest gift of her life, and an albatross around her neck of obeying speed limits and laws.</p><p>“Anything I can do to take the stick out of your ass?” Ruby asks on hour four after the squawking babies have been fed and are blissfully too drowsy to bicker in the back.</p><p>“Physically?” Christina breathes, curious to see where the line of conversation goes.</p><p>“No,” Violet interjects.</p><p>She’s trying to crawl over the seat from her previous spot on Thea’s lap. The leather creaks under her little hands. Ruby leans over to scoop her up into the front with them.</p><p>Ruby bounces her and Violet gives her such a withering look that Ruby laughs.</p><p>“Okay, anything but that, I can do to take the stick out of your ass?” Ruby asks.</p><p>Christina adjusts herself in the seat, back no longer used to these long drives, “Annihilate the whole state of Ohio.”</p><p>“I’ll check the book if there’s something for that,” Ruby says, her attention is fractured between her cranky husband and the sleepy toddler in her lap, “Just let me know when you wanna switch.”</p><p>“Or I can take a turn,” Thea pushes her head between their seats.</p><p>“There are lots of empty roads in Avalon for you to practice driving on,” William volleys back.</p><p>Thea pouts, “I can handle road driving, <em> Dad </em>.”</p><p>“This is a highway.”</p><p>“And weren’t you like, backroad racing when you were fourteen?” she says.</p><p>Ruby snorts, shaking her head. Anything can and will be used as ammunition.</p><p>“Yes, because your grandfather didn’t care if I lived or died.”</p><p>“If that’s true why did he give you a protection spell?” Thea says.</p><p>William’s knuckles crack on the steering wheel.</p><p>“Cows, left side,” says Christopher from the back.</p><p>They all glance.</p><p>Yes, there are cows.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Day two of travel proves for lighter spirits. The other half of the drive is a whole lot of Pennsylvania, and Pittsburgh was a wise choice for stopping for the night. The children aren’t exactly bright eyed and bushy tailed, but they are more adventurous.</p><p>When Ruby’s behind the wheel, the music is loud and the windows are down, because unlike her wife, she didn’t become a square when she hit thirty. The noise does a great job drowning out backseat bickering. And, she’s even lucky enough to happen upon Christina’s favourite song as they pass through Somerset.</p><p>There are many versions of the song. Kaye Ballard, Peggy Lee, Sinatra--but no one made it their own quite like Bobby Womack. It’s the most played album in her wife’s study, aside from her own. Those first edition, first pressed, signed copies. <em> To my beloved. Forever yours, Ruby. </em></p><p>The song is like liquid sunshine, and it’s easy to get the kids singing along. Christopher’s crackling tenor, Thea’s alto, Violet’s baby soprano, and Isaac’s baritone. She taught her children to sing just like she taught her children rhythm. These are pieces of Ruby Baptiste that need to be carried on through the bloodline and the family book. She isn’t having any musically stunted half-white children.</p><p>“Mama, can we stop at the Koontz Coffee Pot?” Christopher asks, waving the pamphlet of tourist attractions along the highway he took from the hotel.</p><p>“We can look at it as we drive past, but I am not stopping this car any more than I have to.”</p><p>He groans and flops back into the middle seat.</p><p>“Read your MAD Magazine,” William suggests.</p><p>“I was saving it for the beach house!”</p><p>Isaac snatches it out of his hand. </p><p>“Don’t! Daaaad!”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>They arrive, mercifully, in the late afternoon.</p><p>Beacham Estate, Avalon, New Jersey.</p><p>A manor worthy of the Braithwhite name, but tucked between dunes of sand and not in a forest forgotten by time. The construction cost a pretty penny, and required more than a few trips out to check on the progress, wipe the memories of the crew, and look after the shoggoths.</p><p>They’re not fond of the sand, but they love the subterranean addition. Naturally. Their proper habitat if anything. Father even got their first batch from here. Well, near hear. A little north up the coastline. Shoggoths. Memory spells. All with proper sun exposure and a fucking pool. It makes Christina’s lip curl in satisfaction. She is the last of her line and the first of her line. Ardham ended with her and Atticus. Beacham will be the ancestral home of her children’s children, and their children. All the links in the chain stretching forward. Away from the flames of Titus Braithwhite.</p><p>Where Ardham was a castle made of stone and wood--oppressive as Ms. Jackson’s Hill House, Beacham is warm wood and glass, organic shapes, made to sway with the ocean breeze.</p><p>And, there’s a heated pool deck.</p><p>“Wow!”</p><p>“Dad, it’s huge!”</p><p>“I get to pick my room first!”</p><p>“We already picked rooms for everyone,” Ruby reminds them, “Now, bags first, oo-ing and ah-ing second.”</p><p>Christina can’t stand to be William another second, so she takes her spare knife from the glove compartment and drags it across her torso, busting the shell at the seams.</p><p>Isaac jumps, Thea covers her mouth, and Violet claps.</p><p>“Jesus, Dad!”</p><p>“Christina!” Ruby says with more annoyance than concern.</p><p>Patriarch, dripping with blood and tissue, gives them all a hard stare as she marches by with the heaviest bags and unlocks the front door.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Nine bedrooms. Five bathrooms. One massive kitchen. A TV room on each of the three floors, and a rec room on the ground floor. It’s got two bedrooms and a bathroom for the boys, and an exit to the beach. The best place for the children to spend their summer.</p><p>The kitchen and biggest living room are on the second floor, which is also a ground floor, since the house is situated between cliff and beach. The living room exits to the pool and hot tub. There’s a master bedroom and bathroom behind the kitchen, and two smaller rooms next to it. Violet gets the room closest to her parents, with the other closest room set aside for Leti when she arrives.</p><p>The remaining four rooms are on the third floor, which is all bedrooms and bathrooms--aside from the rec room, and has a balcony that stretches the house and has the best view. This floor is reserved for Thea, George, and Tic’s family once they arrive.</p><p>The interior has been painted and papered to look Mediterranean with its oranges, whites, and blues. The kitchen is the newest fashion: wood paneling and formica.</p><p>It’s tasteful. They hired a designer to make it tasteful. They both care about good taste, about keeping up appearances if some record exec, or professional colleague happens to swing by. The house needs to look normal. So tasteful, and yet so lived in, that it is both impressive and forgettable. One or two well-placed attention pieces. A Roman urn that was a gift from one Countess Rigel. An original Tarsila Do Amaral. Swords.</p><p>The swords aren’t for taste. Beacham is a place of ceremony, so having a few extra ritual daggers on hand is festive.</p><p>The main event though is the beach gazebo. The lovely concert venue which has another function. One much less medieval looking than the one at Ardham.</p><p>“What’s that?” Violet asks, pointing to the tile flooring of the gazebo.</p><p>The other five pairs of eyes fall downwards. Ruby preens, brushing a hand over Violet’s hair, “That is Ceto and Phorcys. Greek ocean gods.”</p><p>“They look like monsters to me,” says Thea.</p><p>“And angels looked more like flaming wheels and eyeballs,” Isaac snarks, “Not everything is some idealized cherubic Renaissance piece, Thea.”</p><p>“Oh my god, Isaac, you took like one college level art history course.”</p><p>Violet’s eyes keep stuck to it. The snake tails and hair, the crab claws, the grotesque faces. And, she smiles.</p><p>“Home,” she says.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“Cannonball!” </p><p>George took the train from Chicago to Atlantic City.</p><p>(“The trip was beautiful!” he said, “The romance of the train. I mean, Kerouac is brilliant. <em> On The Road </em>tells the tale of the great American road trip, but nothing beats train travel. It’s like a city on tracks. Or, perhaps it’s the Agatha Christie aficionado in me.”</p><p>He’d settled into his adult voice--which was Atticus by way of Leti’s speaking mannerisms. And yet, something still so <em> George </em> about him. The airy intelligence with how he spoke, the gentle humour.</p><p>“Didn’t Agatha Christie write a book called <em> Ten Little </em>--”</p><p>“In England, yes, but the American title is <em> And Then There Were None </em>. Excellent story, about a group of people lured to a beach house to be picked off one by one for their crimes.”</p><p>He leaned forward in his seat, “I think you would enjoy it, Uncle. It matches your sense of humour.”</p><p>Christina snorted. Ruby shook her head, still checking the map, “I don’t suppose any of the crooks getting theirs is a racist old white lady?”</p><p>“Uh, no.”)</p><p>Having him, sans parents, is always a treat. Not that Tic and Leti have occupied the same space since the divorce, but still, having one or the other around turns George broody, violent. Without them, he is joyful. Evidenced by him surfacing in the pool and squirting water from his hands at Thea--currently teaching Violet to swim.</p><p>“You’re quite the chimney today,” Ruby says, coming out onto the patio.</p><p>Christina looks up at her from her <em> Annual Review of Biochemistry </em> and her cigarette. She inspects the box and finds it half empty.</p><p>“So I am,” she says, offering a drag to Ruby who accepts it, and a spot on the chaise lounger.</p><p>“Anything interesting?” Ruby asks, eyeing the journal.</p><p>“Well, I could read Boyer’s thoughts on enzymes all day, but it doesn’t make for well-lubricated conversation.”</p><p>“You can just say it’s dry.”</p><p>Christina takes a sip of her spiked lemonade, “And you, my heart? Everything good with Robbie?”</p><p>Ruby rolls her eyes, “Nashville boys. You could light a fire under their asses and they’d sleep through it. But, Patti vouches for him, so I’ll bear it.” She pulls at her wife until she’s half in her lap, then combs through Christina’s underhair.</p><p>“When are they expecting you?”</p><p>“Not until September. Just getting all of the logistics sorted out first.”</p><p>Christina hums, cigarette forgotten as she melts into Ruby’s gentle touch. Ruby snuffs it on the expensive ashtray and smiles as she watches George and Thea. They take turns as Violet’s mounts, splashing like dolphins, bouncing until they can get that screaming toddler laugh out of the youngest.</p><p>“Dad! Dad!” the middle boys arrive, speedwalking, because she already chewed them out for running.</p><p>Isaac still looks awkward, poor thing, with his stretch scars everywhere, and that ridiculous patch of chest hair. He’s all gristle, still unpolished in his adolescence, but man-passing in a way that is still so worrying.</p><p>Christopher, on the other hand, is thriving outside of the house. He’s got more colour in his cheeks, he’s sleeping better, and he’s due for a growth spurt based on his feet just doubled in size. Both are due for a hair cut though. </p><p>“Mama! Dad!” Isaac is holding a flyer.</p><p>“There’s a drive-in theatre in Vineland that’s doing horror double features all summer. Can we go?”</p><p>“What’s playing?”</p><p>A pause, of the boys flitting their eyes between each other and their parents.</p><p>“Blacula and Necromancy.”</p><p>“<em> Blacula </em>,” Ruby repeats.</p><p>“It was actually written, directed by, and starring black people,” Isaac says.</p><p>It’s George and Thea, interjecting, that tips the balance, “Oh, please, Daddy. It’s not too far, so it would be great driving practice!”</p><p>It’s tempting too, having the children out of the house for Saturday night. Well, all sans Violet, who has an eight o’clock bedtime anyway. All before Tic’s family arrives on Sunday.</p><p>Christina checks with the boss before assenting. Ruby nods imperceptibly.</p><p>“Yes!” the kids cheer.</p><p>“But! There are gonna be rules. And curfew. And, you’re taking the Bentley.”</p><p>Thea groans, “But that car’s like, ancient.”</p><p>“And safe.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Old car or not, the fading sun bleeding through tinted windows and the radio as loud as it can be feels like freedom on a Saturday night. </p><p>Thea’s got her sunglasses on, hands at ten and two, and knows the car has been thoroughly inspected. Dad spent the better part of three hours explaining every part of the engine and what to do if it fails. Not even her whiniest, <em> “Daddy!” </em>Could shorten the lesson.</p><p>Daddy’s been dogged lately. If she’s not nagging Thea about college she’s nagging her about magic. Always drilling her about spells. Telling her this summer is supposed to be her “Coming of Age” ceremony. Whatever that means. Her Satanic Communion or whatever. Barf.</p><p>She supposes it’s compromise, after all, Daddy’s also been teaching her the steps and the bows for her Debutante coming out, so she can swear her allegiance to whatever dark god Mama and Daddy talk to late at night.</p><p>But, with nothing but the road in front of her, and the beach house behind her, all Thea wants to think about is being around <em> actual teenagers </em>instead of being cooped up with her family for an entire summer.</p><p>Speaking of which.</p><p>“You’re wrong! You’re so wrong! Marcia Brady is way hotter than Laurie Partridge!” George has fully turned in the front seat to debate Isaac behind him.</p><p>“I didn’t say Marcia was the hot one. You said Patridge or Brady, and I Partridge because Shirley Jones  is a stone cold fox!”</p><p>George taps the seat behind Thea, “Chris, tie breaker?”</p><p>Christopher’s shuffling those damn cards again, “I don’t have an opinion.”</p><p>“Look, C, you can pick between two pretty girls without wanting anything to do with either of them.”</p><p>“Yeah, I’m just not really into white women.”</p><p>Thea snorts, “Yeah, ‘cause you’re not a walking advertisement for Sigmund Freud like Isaac.”</p><p>His voice cracks, “Shut up Thea! At least I’m not chasing every junior Panther who walks through Aunt Leti’s house.”</p><p>She can feel George rolling his eyes as he leans towards Christopher, “You think they’ll ever grow out of this?”</p><p>Chris’s shaking head is visible in the rearview, “See, they’re trapped in this cycle because they’re Mom and Dad. Dad tried to hard to turn Thea into her, that she ended up going the opposite direction and turning into Mom. And, by neglecting Isaac she moulded him into her.”</p><p>“I am not like Mom.”</p><p>“You think I’m like Dad?”</p><p>He and George ignore this.</p><p>“So where does that leave you and Violet?”</p><p>“Me? I’m free to do whatever I want because no one expects anything from me. And Vi? Well, she’s an unspeakable horror released upon the world, and she’s the baby, so she can do whatever she wants.”</p><p>George laughs and shakes his head, “God, I hope I never turn into either of my parents. My mom’s crazy and my dad’s an asshole.”</p><p>“Aunt Leti is not crazy!” Thea objects.</p><p>“You didn’t see her take a hammer to the bathroom wall and pull an actual human body out! On Christmas morning!” George retorts, “And then, instead of calling the cops like a sane person, she just hauled the poor woman into the elevator and dropped her off in this underground chamber I didn’t even know existed.”</p><p>“The place you, me, and James explored last summer. With the horrible bugs--”</p><p>“With the human faces?! Yeah. Apparently, Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandpa Titus built it.”</p><p>“You guys went exploring spooky tunnels? Without us?” Chris says.</p><p>“Yeah, well you’re like, eleven,” Thea says.</p><p>“I’m twelve, so--”</p><p>“But you were eleven last summer, barf bag.”</p><p>He sticks his tongue out. She mirrors it.</p><p>“Hey, how inaccurate do you think the magic in Necromancy is gonna be?” Isaac cuts in.</p><p>“I’m more interested in Blacula since we know a real life vampire.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>It’s early enough in summer for the grass to still be lush and green underfoot. It’s a sea of cars between the Bentley and the screen, with the concession stand somewhere below.</p><p>“Come on, Moneybags, I want a hot dog,” Christopher taps Thea’s seat as they park.</p><p>“Yeah, yeah,” she fishes her purse out, “Everyone coming?”</p><p>No man wants to be left behind, so Isaac and George haul themselves out of the left side, with George sliding over the hood to the aisle of green.</p><p>“Show off,” Isaac says, taking the long way. He’s hunched over with his hands stuff in his pockets, trying to shrink once in public.</p><p>“Come on, Man. Stand up straight. We are black kings,” George elbows him.</p><p>“I’ll have you know, I am high yellow,” Christopher says.</p><p>“Chris, you know Mama hates it when you say shit like that,” Thea scolds, “You sound like an Antebellum lawyer.”</p><p>“I do declare,” he adopts his best Foghorn Leghorn.</p><p>There’s a pack of teens ahead of them at the concession. White kids with shaggy hair and expensive clothes. They look like horses, in their way, thoroughbreds. And, one of them, a blond boy, turns when he hears George’s laugh. He eyes glide down and past them, before turning and elbowing the nearest boy.</p><p>Growing up black means a hypervigilance of the behaviour of white people. Whether it’s their friends from across the street, who told them they couldn’t come play anymore because they couldn’t associate with negroes. Or, when they go shopping in fancy department stores where the employees follow them around. Cops, teachers, hell--even the ice cream men, all feel like the eyes of Big Brother from Mr. Orwell’s book.</p><p>And, it’s not like they haven’t talked to white people before. They have white friends. Isaac’s best friend, Donnie, is white. Two of Thea’s girls, Louise and Midge, are both white. The difference is that those are Chicago kids. Kids who’ve grown up taking the bus next to black people, eating together, playing together. Thoroughbred whites like this have only seen black people on TV and in books.</p><p>So, they make polite conversation, keeping themselves restrained from goofing off or causing any disturbance. Well, George doesn’t. George has too much of his mother and his grandfather in him. It’s a free country and he’s a FREE MAN. He’s gonna buy a fucking pork roll sandwich and a pop and fucking watch Blacula.</p><p>“Are you guys Blaculas?” asks the blond boy.</p><p>Isaac squares his shoulders. Thea folds her arms. Chris digs his hands to the bottoms of his pockets.</p><p>George nods, “You got me, BRUTHA,” and bares his teeth, posing like Mr. Lugosi.</p><p>One of the girls (one with black hair and white rimmed sunglasses) laughs, “That’s funny. So where are you from?”</p><p>The others of the pack seem to relax, just as curious about them as they are.</p><p>“All over, Baby, I’ve been coast to coast,” George adopts this whole, road hipster persona. His own black Kerouac. </p><p>“We’re from Chicago,” Thea supplies, rolling her eyes as she pays for their order.</p><p>“Ah, that explains it,” the girl with the blonde hair and green dress says.</p><p>“Explains what?” Thea asks acidly.</p><p>Green dress fumbles, “There’s just no one else looking quite like you around here.”</p><p>“Black people you mean,” Thea says.</p><p>Green dress shrugs.</p><p>“Sorry, the most metropolitan place Amelia’s been is Providence,” blond boy says, “I’m Warren. That’s Martha, Grant, and Hunter.”</p><p>“You can call me Hector,” George says, constructing a new name to go with his own identity, “These are my cousins.”</p><p>“Thea,” Thea says, not playing along.</p><p>“Call me Ishmael,” Isaac says.</p><p>“I’m Moonchild,” Christopher says.</p><p>“I didn’t know black girls could have blonde hair,” Martha says, reaching for Thea’s. Thea bares her teeth as greasy fingers brush her curls.</p><p>“Oh, it’s soft,” Martha says, “I thought it would be coarse.”</p><p>The retort dies on Thea’s tongue, instead she reaches out to touch Martha’s and Martha lets her. It’s sleek and uninteresting. Not quite as soft or thick as Daddy’s. Just kind of limp.</p><p>“Our dad’s white,” Isaac supplies.</p><p>“Isn’t that illegal?” Grant asks.</p><p>The muscle jumps in Isaac’s jaw.</p><p>“In Alabama, maybe,” George says, getting between his cousins, “But not in the civilized world. <em> Loving V. Virginia </em>.”</p><p>“So, you’re like, smart?” Amelia asks.</p><p>“<em> You can never be overdressed or overeducated. </em>Do you know who said that?”</p><p>She shakes her head.</p><p>“Oscar Wilde. He’s known for being a great wit.”</p><p>“Yeah, I heard he was known for being a faggot,” Hunter says.</p><p>Behind Isaac, Christopher flinches.</p><p>George assesses him through a long gaze, one that he had inherited from George the first, “The two things aren’t mutually exclusive, Brutha.”</p><p>“I sure as hell am not your brother,” Hunter says.</p><p>The moment stretches paper thin and ready to rupture. That is, until their food is called and Thea taps Chris to help her grab things. Their Mark of Cain necklaces slip reassuringly against their fingers.</p><p>“Hunter, Man, be cool,” Warren says.</p><p>Alpha politics among men is always so bizarre. Hunter is bigger than Warren, so the latter must have more money or social capital, because he wins the stare down.</p><p>“Whatever,” he says.</p><p>“Take your fucking sandwich,” Thea slaps the package into George’s hand.</p><p>“Do you wanna watch the movie with us?” Warren asks her.</p><p>“You mean from your car?” she asks.</p><p>“There’s some picnic tables over there. It’s a little too close to the screen, but we have some grass for smoking.”</p><p>Warren, with his Ken Doll good looks and his pressed khakis, gives Thea this look that he must think makes him look like James Dean. </p><p>And, Thea, who is used to getting looks for her “exotic” beauty, still can’t help but bat her lashes at a best American boy.</p><p>“Sure,” she says.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Watching the movie becomes less about the movies and more about impressing this group of white kids, Christopher laments. Being only twelve, and not even remotely interested in initiating himself into the country club crowd, he’s stuck making solo commentary about the inaccuracies of <em> Necromancy </em>, and how far Orson Welles has fallen since Citizen Kane.</p><p>When he looks over, he finds George entertaining everyone with a story and Thea making eyes at that walking polo shirt.</p><p>Being the youngest sucks. Too young to be one of the older kids, much too old to be poking tide pools with Violet.</p><p>When is he gonna feel like he fits?</p><p>A figure catches his eye at the periphery and he winces.</p><p>They’re out of the house. He doesn’t have to see <em> them </em>every day anymore.</p><p>The figure moves closer and Christopher grinds his teeth, keeping his eyes locked on his popcorn.</p><p>A trio of Lenape men, still in their war paint. Respected warriors, loving fathers, brothers, sons, all riddled with musket holes. One with a hole where his face used to be.</p><p>They’re nicer than some of the ghosts he’s shared a bench with. He’s had men with peeled faces scream bloody murder at him from across the playground. He’s seen women who had to crawl to drag their disemboweled body through the street.</p><p>The ghosts who haunt his home aren’t gruesome. No, Mama and Daddy are much too professional for that. Uncle Will is whole. Miss Sarah is whole. Mr. Devon is whole. Mama and Daddy had use for them, and so they’ve been kept clean and beautiful even in death.</p><p>Grandma rarely comes out of the attic, but she’s nice, even though she’s pale from all the blood she lost. She looks like Daddy, but even more sad.</p><p>These warriors may be fragmented and rotting, but they’re just here for the movie, and to remind every person sitting in their car what the real horror of this continent is. The cold touch reminder of how much blood has soaked this soil in the name of claiming a new colony for England. And Spain. And France. This land is not ours. We’re uneasy visitors. Renters still waiting to see how much it’s going to cost.</p><p>He holds his bag of popcorn out to them. If he unfocuses his eyes he doesn’t see dangling mandible, or Thea giggling at something <em> Warren </em>has said.</p><p>“Did dying hurt?” Christopher asks them quietly.</p><p>“Òsòmi,” the man nearest him says.</p><p>“Ah.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“Are you sure?” Ruby asks.</p><p>Christina sighs into the sheets. The cuffs on her wrists bite pleasantly against her pisiforms. They’re new. Usually Ruby prefers to bind her with silk. Black or red, loving the contrast against pale skin. The cuffs are hooked into the rope, looped through the hook in the ceiling, suspending her, but just barely. Just enough to keep her up on her knees without the support of her arms.</p><p>The silk of Ruby’s robe brushes Christina’s bare feet and she twitches at the sensation. It takes a moment to collect herself, rolling her head against the mattress until she can speak, “Birthday bumps is tradition.”</p><p>Ruby smoothes a hand over Christina’s bare hand, teasing each cheek, before dipping a thumb inside her vagina. Christina grunts, and Ruby retracts her hand. She’s a sadist, so she’s enjoying Christina’s reactions. Her frustrated frown. The way her hips chase Ruby’s hand.</p><p>“Forty-two is a lot,” Ruby says--like she doesn’t try to talk Christina down a number every year.</p><p>“And I’ve earned every hit,” Christina says.</p><p>“Mmm,” Christina can see Ruby’s expression even with her eyes closed. Sucking that lower lip, eyes appreciative. Another swipe against her pussy. She’s so eager for her taste like this.</p><p>“And if you black out?”</p><p>“Don’t stop. Go harder.”</p><p>“Okay,” Ruby kisses a path down Christina’s spine, “If I see your hands turn purple I’m taking you down.”</p><p>“You’re not a Chicago cop, Ruby. The likelihood of me getting Cheiralgia Paresthetica is very low.”</p><p>“Yeah, yeah, shut up Professor Davenport. I’m gonna give you forty-two licks for the first time.”</p><p>“Then do it.”</p><p>Before she does, Ruby gathers her up, scooping a hand under Christina’s head and turning her face. She kisses Christina, soft, then hard, then wet, then soft. She kisses her cheeks. Her nose. Her forehead. Her chin.</p><p>Christina doesn’t know exactly what she sees, but when Ruby sees it. Tranquility, she supposes, she stops, and takes position.</p><p>Ruby lifts a list, one of her own handwriting. Little things from year forty-one that she would have forgotten (or not). Christina’s strikes over the year. She doesn’t bother with pre-amble, the first swat is always supposed to be a surprise.</p><p>Christina moans on impact.</p><p>“This is for picking a fight with Thea’s science teacher.”</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Christina says against the sheets.</p><p>Smack.</p><p>“This is for cumming on my dress after Christopher’s concert.”</p><p>“I’m sorry.”</p><p>“This is for humiliating Leti at the Block Party.”</p><p>Smack.</p><p>Christina snorts, unrepentant, “That was funny.”</p><p>Ruby hits her harder with the next one.</p><p>Time blurs in and out. Christina’s senses a tightwire between everything and nothing. Ruby’s touch. Her scent. The candlelight. The drooling trail of her own arousal. The strain in Christina's shoulders and arms from the binding. She doesn't even feel the strikes anymore. It's just a noise and her hips pushing forward at this point. The inflamed flesh a constant sting. </p><p>And, Ruby knows this because she stops at twenty-three. </p><p>The sob that breaks out of Christina's mouth surprises her.</p><p>Ruby hushes her. She runs a hand down Christina's spine, stopping at her ass to brush soft fingers against the reddened skin. Christina shudders. </p><p>She can feel Ruby's own interest and attention too. The way her thumbs keep parting Christina's ass cheeks to admire a dripping pussy and twitching ass. </p><p>"So fucking wet," she says, before burying her face there. </p><p>Christina wails. Ruby is dragging her tongue along the cum tracks on Christina's thighs. Her back is bowing and her knees buckling. Only the rope from the ceiling keeps her upright. The obscene noises of Ruby devouring her cunt fills the air. It's all too much and not enough, so Ruby pushes a pair of slick fingers in Christina's ass and fucks them in roughly. </p><p>"Yesssss," Christina manages out. </p><p>Ruby isn't satisfied until Christina is to a sobbing mess, shying away from her fingers from too much stimulation. Her orgasm has coated the sheets below them. </p><p>"No more paddle," Ruby says as she resumes spanking. </p><p>"I can take it," Christina argues. </p><p>"No you can't," and to demonstrate, Ruby delivers a hard slap at full power to a wretched scream. </p><p>Christina, hating to be proven wrong, sulks through the next three swats, up until it starts to rile her again. </p><p>"Insatiable," Ruby chuckles as Christina starts wiggling her ass after each slap. </p><p>"I need your cock," Christina whines. </p><p>"You're gonna have to earn it," Ruby slaps her cunt this time. </p><p>"Yes, Ma'am."</p><p>Slap number thirty-five has Christina begging.</p><p>“Ruby, please.”</p><p>“Thirty-five was a good year. You fucked me in the ass at an awards show. Wouldn’t let me cum until we were at the hotel.”</p><p>“Ruby.”</p><p>“Thirty-six. For that time you loudly announced that the preacher’s children were mentally deficient for believing in Santa Claus.”</p><p>“Please, fuck me!”</p><p>“Only when you deserve it you needy bitch,” Ruby slaps hard for the next one, “Thirty-seven. Five more.”</p><p>She knows Christina’s close to breaking, so for ‘thirty-nine’, “You gave me a beautiful baby girl, and I almost lost you,” she kisses both cheeks instead.</p><p>Forty.</p><p>Forty-one.</p><p>Forty-two.</p><p>Christina sobs in relief as Ruby mounts her, dildo sliding in easily despite its girth. Ruby hauls Christina up with her palm flat against her wife’s larynx. Just pushing on it as a tease. Words like ‘easy’ and ‘fucking slut’ spill from her mouth with each thrust. It doesn’t take much to finish either of them. Ruby unties Christina’s hands and links their fingers, finishing with her nipples brushing Christina’s back. She’s the one who takes them down, cradling her wife with her whole body. She leads that tear soaked red face to her own and kisses every inch of Christina all while stroking her hair. She holds a shaking body and groans with some delight as a soft mouth latches onto her nipple, sucking until milk fills it.</p><p>“Good girl. That’s my good girl. I love you so much, Christina.”</p><p>This is the most important part. More important than the sex. </p><p>It’s a lesson they learned the hard way.</p><p>Christina can be deprived of anything. Oxygen. Sight. Freedom. One thing she cannot be deprived of is affection.</p><p>(The first time they did something like this, Ruby did the usual keepaway game with kissing until she watched something snap in her wife.</p><p>Christina became overwrought. She thrashed back and forth, wailing. The pleading turned from erotic to heartbroken. The agitation was violent, but not at Ruby. At herself.</p><p>And after, Ruby gathered the shattered mess of her wife into her lap and held her. She stroked hair and kissed away tears.</p><p>“Daddy wouldn’t…” she sniffled.</p><p><em> Oh no, </em>Ruby thought.</p><p>“One summer. It was so hot, but he told me I couldn’t swim in the river. That was what boys did and I was a lady, and there were leeches,” Christina chuckled, “So, I cut off all my hair, shed my clothes, and swam in the river with all the other village boys. I had no idea the could still tell I wasn’t one of them because,” she pointed to her groin. </p><p>“He spanked me, right in front of everyone, and I,” Christina’s eyes rolled up to look at Ruby, “I was just happy to have his attention. He stroked my head, afterward. Because I had been crying and he didn’t know what to…</p><p>“I tried it again, and he just sent me to my room. So, I escalated. Looked for anything that could anger him enough to just … if he couldn’t hold me, at least he could hit me.”</p><p>Ruby kissed her, “I won’t withhold from you again.”</p><p>“You can hurt me any way you want. Just don’t ever stop touching me.”)</p><p>They’re tangled together, Christina still drinking from Ruby’s breast--more lazy than greedy now. She adds a forth finger to her wife, rubbing her clit with her thumb.</p><p>“Fuck,” Ruby hisses, curling an ankle around Christina’s hips. But, her attention is split, she checks the clock, “Kids <em> should </em>be home soon.”</p><p>“Keyword, should,” Christina replies before switching nipples again.</p><p>“Will you go fetch them if they stay out too late?”</p><p>“Of course,” Christina says, “From hell if I have to.”</p><p>And promptly passes out.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“You’re staying all summer?” Warren asks.</p><p>“Yeah, leaving the week before school starts,” Thea says.</p><p>“Can I see you again then?”</p><p>She shrugs, “If I get bored.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Ruby leaves the bedroom to find a tiny shadow standing in the kitchen with a knife.</p><p>“Jesus, Violet, put that back,” she sighs.</p><p>Violet points the knife at her.</p><p>So much like her mother, Ruby rolls her eyes. She remembers, so long ago when Christina was pinning her with a sharp needle to her neck.</p><p>“Cake,” Violet says.</p><p>“You can’t have the cake yet,” Ruby says, “Besides, it’s past your bed time. No sweets.”</p><p>Violet stamps a foot.</p><p>“You can have a dried fruit.”</p><p>The negotiation goes well enough, because she finds herself sitting at the breakfast bar while the little monster chews on an apricot, knife block moved to the top of the fridge.</p><p>“Did we wake you up?” Ruby asks.</p><p>Violet nods.</p><p>“Did it scare you?”</p><p>Violet shakes her head.</p><p>“It’s okay if it did. We were making scary noises. Sometimes love involves scary things.”</p><p>Violet nods.</p><p>“But it’s only normal if everyone’s having fun.”</p><p>“Stop,” Violet says.</p><p>“Okay, no more details.”</p><p>Ruby sighs into her hand, reaching out with the other to poke the end of her daughter’s nose. A smaller version of her own nose. Little Vi-Vi, who is all Christina limbs and Ruby’s face. She worries about Number Four. She doesn’t get to grow up with her brothers and sister the same way. She’s more like Leti, being raised by the other three. </p><p>The clock flashes 11:45. Fifteen minutes past curfew, and the end of the grace period. </p><p>“Okay, back to bed, Violet.”</p><p>Violet shows her baby teeth in a snarl.</p><p>“I said, <em> bed </em>.”</p><p>The small power struggle is interrupted by the rumble of an approaching engine and the reflection of headlights on the wall.</p><p>Three teenagers and one twelve year-old come stumbling in past the shoggoths, most reeking of mary-jane.</p><p>“Now I know you haven’t been smoking reefer and then driving your <em> baby brother </em> around, Thea Lilith.”</p><p>But, it’s a relief. To be chewing them out from the comfort of her kimono, with them back at the house safely of their own accord.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Tic arrives on Sunday in a hideous Ford Gran Torino station wagon. There’s the requisite slamming of doors, and passing of small children back and forth. Christina meets him in the driveway.</p><p>He looks good. Relaxed and darker, with his cleavage sticking out of a tank top he’s thrown a patterned shirt over.</p><p>Mirana is beautiful. Tic certainly has a type for women with bob cuts. She’s shorter though, than Ji-Ah or Leti. There’s a calm humour to her as well. She takes the baby from Tic and gestures to him. He walks into Christina’s arms with his two year-old clinging to his leg.</p><p>“Happy Birthday, you old man,” he says into her neck.</p><p>“Do I have to invite you on vacation every year to get you to acknowledge it?” she bites back, burrowing her nose into his shirt.</p><p>“I dunno, ask me after we’ve done Hawaii and the whole Caribbean.”</p><p>He slaps her back, “Got you a birthday present,” and leans past her to wave, “Hey Ruby! Love the hair. Now where are my nieces and nephews at?”</p><p>George stands at the threshold, staring down his father.</p><p>Atticus scrubs a hand over his face and gestures for George to come to him. For a hug. Little Xiomara totters dangerously and Atticus bends to scoop her up. It’s the wrong move, because George storms back into the house, and then out the other side down to the beach.</p><p>Tic stops himself from deflating. Instead, he stands there nodding, lips rolled in an angry kind of understanding.</p><p>Isaac, ever the politician, breaks ranks first, “Hi Uncle Tic!” and comes to help with the bags.</p><p>“Isaac? Shit, your pops didn’t tell me you’d grown so much. Look at you!”</p><p>It breaks the ice enough for the rest of the unpacking and unloading to be less tense.</p><p>“Are you sure this is Violet? She’s so big already!” Tic roars as he picks her up and bounces her, “You’ve got a little string bean here.” He turns to Violet as if he’s sharing important news, “Little string bean!” Then blows a raspberry against her cheek.</p><p>She squeals and flails, highly undignified. Ruby, who always seems to remember the camera, snaps a shot of the moment, catching Christina’s mournful delight in the periphery.</p><p>“Christina? Good to meet you,” Mirana says.</p><p>“Pleasure’s all mine. Please, let me get your things. You’re family now.”</p><p>She’s a little starstruck seeing Ruby.</p><p>“Goodness, you really are Ruby Baptiste! Your version of <em> Beyond the Sea </em>? The greatest.”</p><p>Christina wonders if Atticus schooled Mirana about appealing to Ruby’s ego to avoid her sisterly loyalty.</p><p>“I remember back in ‘61, we were at Bobby’s New Years party and he made me come on stage and demanded I sing it with him…” </p><p>She leads Mirana into the house with the story trailing behind them. </p><p>Christina brushes a hand over Tic’s shoulder, “Come on, let’s get your things. I want to show you the gazebo.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>In the sea palace of the gods, they did hold a celebration of the king’s birthday. To his left sat his wife, matched in power and affection. To his right, brother by choice, with his furrowed brow and his shame. </p><p>For his birthday, his children did compete for both affection and the title of “best gift”.</p><p>The eldest, Goddess of Power, and the Foster Son, first Nephew, God of Wisdom, knew the king, God of Riches, wanted for nothing. So, together they made a spell of fire. Little men of flame fought in miniature grand battles, then joined hands to explode into the sky.</p><p>And, the God King was very pleased.</p><p>Second born, God of Love, had a trick up his sleeve with a pair of cuff links.</p><p>“Roll these,” he said, offering a pair of dice.</p><p>His father did, and on each roll was a pair of sixes.</p><p>“Enchanted with luck,” he said, offering them in humility.</p><p>And, the God King was very impressed.</p><p>“You’re still not gonna be able to beat me at Spades,” the Queen said.</p><p>“That’s nothing,” said Third Born, God of Fate, as he offered up his own gift. Not wanting to engage his siblings in a show of magic, he relied on his own natural talents.</p><p>Illustrations, beautiful and grotesque, added to a recipe book for monsters.</p><p>And, the God King was verklempt.</p><p>“Is that Buster?” he asked, referring to the eldest of the Shoggoths, who was born into the King’s arms.</p><p>The God of Fate nodded.</p><p>Youngest Child, The Devourer, brought forth her own gift with some assistance from her father, The Queen, and Goddess of Rebirth. Her gift was most simple: a cool rock she found on the beach, because <em> she’s two </em>.</p><p>“Thank you, sweetheart,” Christina says, kissing Violet’s cheek. She’s gifted the rare treat of her youngest settling on her lap, if only to steal some cake.</p><p>“Well, hard to follow that,” Atticus says, pushing a wrapped package across the table.</p><p>“Nonsense,” Christina says.</p><p>The real gift of the evening, is, of course, having to adjust her sitting every few seconds because of the punishment Ruby gave her ass last night. Every uncomfortable shift gets her a hot smirk from her wife, and now with Violet planted in her lap Christina is trapped against wicker.</p><p>It’s a book, like all gifts from Atticus. One with a jar shaped like a human head for its cover. Genre fiction, likely, and a disappointing change from the usual saucy lesbian pulp books he gets her.</p><p>“Can’t have a summer vacation without some ghost stories,” he says.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>After dishes have been cleared away, and festivities died, Christina finds herself leaning against the gazebo, fresh Cuban cigar between her teeth as Tic guards them from the wind to light up.</p><p>The sun’s sunk, but the sky is light enough to keep the Atlantic ocean a pale grey blue. Like her eyes, Ruby tells her. Ruby, who looks like a pin up in her new bathing suit, splashing around with the kids and Mirana.</p><p>“Still got a one-track mind with that, huh?” Atticus remarks.</p><p>“Huh?” Christina shakes her head, finally acknowledging that he was speaking.</p><p>He laughs, “I just hope I’m still as in love with Mirana after twenty years.”</p><p>It’s a compliment, and not even a backhanded one.</p><p>“It takes effort,” she says, “I decide to adore Ruby each day.”</p><p>He puffs on his own cigar, looking at the horizon.</p><p>“You know, Avalon is famous for shipwrecks. Apparently, a Spanish conquisador’s ship ran afoul of the reef off the coast. Met a mariner who said that he knew a guy who tried to recover the gold from the wreck. Said he was attacked by ‘Fish Men’.”</p><p>Christina leans on a beam of the gazebo, hiding her interest under lidded eyes, “So, some drunk told you about mermen?”</p><p>Tic rolls his eyes, “I happened to track the guy down. He still had a map of the rough coordinates of the crash. It wasn’t just a boat down there. There was a whole underwater structure. Like a temple of some sort.”</p><p>She drums her nails on the wall.</p><p>“And, I think you wouldn’t have picked this spot if you didn’t know about the wreckage beforehand,” he says.</p><p>That’s the thing about Tic: he’s always been good at following her breadcrumbs and being really proud of himself when he gets to the loaf. She knows how to tickle his imagination. He knows how to do the remaining, messy parts of the work, then she swoops in for the spoils. It’s a fun game they play.</p><p>“Except, this time, if I’m setting one foot in that temple it’s you who’s coming with me,” he says.</p><p>“And orphan my children if I die?” she says, with a pouted lip.</p><p>Tic scoffs and sits in the sand, feigning nonchalance, “See, that’s the thing, Christina. I’ve got not skin in this one. What could I want with whatever’s down there?”</p><p>“Adventure. What you’ve always wanted Tic.”</p><p>“Being a father’s enough adventure for me,” he lies.</p><p>(If it were true, he’d be in the surf right now, helping corral unsteady toddlers while the teenagers jump over choppy waves.)</p><p>“And I have all the power I could ask for already,” she lies.</p><p>(If it were true, they wouldn’t be standing on the spire of her temple.)</p><p>Round and round they go. They are the serpent and the tail. Consuming and rebuilding each other. Bound by blood and fate. </p><p>Idiots. The both of them.</p><p>Christina breaks off first. She snuffs her cigar, pockets it, and grabs a beach towel. Her hair whips to and fro with the wind, even as she reaches the sputtering surf. The waves pull at her bare legs, but don’t reach the hem of her linen shorts. </p><p>Ruby meets her, stepping into her arms to be wrapped in the towel.</p><p>But, Christina is betrayed! Isaac, flaunting his new height and strength, scoops his father up and hauls him into the water. </p><p>Ruby stands there cackling as Christina emerges from the waves with all the offence of a wet cat. Skinny brown arms pull her back into the maw of the sea. She lets herself be swept up, surfacing together with Christopher who is taking advantage of the weightlessness of water to act as a backpack. She feels the presence of others, but no hostility. A scouting party of neighbours. Of the aquatic kind.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Atticus is a mind terrorist. This is her thesis statement and she has two decades of evidence to back it.</p><p>The terrorism in question comes from something as innocuous as a birthday present. A book of compiled horror shorts. By Daphne du Maurier. An author she has some affection for. Having enjoyed the original film version of <em> The Birds </em> , and <em> Rebecca </em> by Hitchcock and Reville, but found the ‘62 adaptation with James Mason ghastly. The compilation itself is called: <em> Don’t Look Now </em>after the longest of the shorts. One that enraptures her attention at six-thirty on the eighteenth, and holds it until Ruby is wandering in with her evening shawl.</p><p>“I was wondering where you had gotten to,” she says, then spotting Christina’s expression, grabs her foot. “Everything okay?”</p><p>Christina tosses the book to the side with faux-nonchalance, “Yes. Just a story,” and then prodding the side of her cheek with her tongue, “Did we pack the thermometer?”</p><p>Ruby scoffs, “Yes. You insist on keeping an overstuffed first aid kit in the car wherever we go. What is this about?”</p><p>“Wasn’t Isaac complaining about joint pain this morning?”</p><p>“Yes, because he’s a growing boy who went for a run on the beach,” Ruby reaches for the book with one hand, still physically blocking her wife’s exit.</p><p>“There’s a story,” Christina begins, wetting her lips, “The children get sick. And they don’t catch it in time.”</p><p>“I see. Okay. So, the children are healthy.”</p><p>“Violet’s been cranky.”</p><p>“She’s always cranky.”</p><p>Christina fiddles with her watch. Ruby doesn’t bother folding her arms, just looks at her wife knowingly, “They all had their six month check-ups with Dr. Levy.”</p><p>“I know.”</p><p>“And he would have told us if there were any causes for alarm.”</p><p>“I know,” Christina takes a deep breath, “You’re right.”</p><p>“Your war criminal cousin,” Ruby begins because she knows it always makes Christina laugh, “Just gave you a scary book. And you,” she drifts into Christina’s agitated orbit, “Miss, ‘Nothing Scares Me’ got spooked. For your forty-second birthday.”</p><p>Her arms hook around her wife’s neck, rocking them together. Christina melts into the embrace, clinging to Ruby, kissing her neck and inhaling fresh air, smoke, and perfume.</p><p>Her gaze catches a foreign figure in the door.</p><p>“Sorry, just wanted to say, ‘goodnight’,” Mirana says.</p><p>“Was the room alright last night? Do you need anything?” Christina asks, instantly in Host Mode.</p><p>“Yes, it’s a beautiful room. We’re want for nothing. Thank you so much for having us.”</p><p>She waves a little as she closes the door.</p><p>“You like her,” Ruby says.</p><p>“She’s a peach. <em> You like her </em> more than I do, but you can’t because of <b>Leti Solidarity</b>.”</p><p>Ruby rolls her lips and avoids eye contact, “You like her, so we have to have her around more often. Because Tic is terrible.”</p><p>“Tic is better than we’ve ever seen Tic.”</p><p>“He still has Tic stink about him. I don’t know what, but I’mma find out what about.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Atticus is a mind terrorist. They must have taught him in Korea or something, because Ruby is staring at the ceiling while her wife snores into her ear. </p><p>The children are fine.</p><p>They’re healthy.</p><p>She’s just making sure they’re in their beds and haven’t snuck out to the beach. At night. Because all sorts roam these shores.</p><p>Violet’s sleeping normal--for her, wrapped in a blanket like a mummy, arms folded and all, and upside down. Cool as a cucumber. </p><p>Downstairs she finds the boys asleep, spread across two couches. Isaac’s foot is dangerously close to Christopher’s mouth. George is sprawled on the floor with a couch cushion under his chest. They’re bathed in the black and white of the test pattern, so she shuts the TV off. </p><p>It’s easier to do this while they’re sleeping, so she checks their foreheads. Not a smidge of temperature. Christopher rouses, “Mama, what?”</p><p>“Go to bed, Chris,” she says softly.</p><p>He rubs a hand over his face, “Yeah. Yeah. Okay.”</p><p>George rouses next, “Shit, what time is it?”</p><p>“Three-thirty something,” Ruby supplies.</p><p>Isaac could sleep through an atomic bomb, so he requires actual shaking, “Isaac. Go to bed.”</p><p>He shuffles off. Cranky and tired. Her poor sasquatch boy hits his head on the door frame and sighs before closing the door.</p><p>They’re okay.</p><p>She makes sure the door is locked before ascending the stairs.</p><p>She bumps into a dark figure in the kitchen and both jump.</p><p>“Jesus Lord, Thea.”</p><p>“Mama, you scared the sh-crap out of me.”</p><p>Ruby looks down, “Now I know you’re not tracking sand on my marble floors.”</p><p>Thea sighs, and shuffles back to the mat to wipe them off.</p><p>“And what are you doing coming in from the beach so late, huh?”</p><p>“I was out for a walk. Couldn’t sleep, so I wanted some fresh air,” but Thea is too much like Ruby to get a lie passed her.</p><p>What she’s lying about, Ruby doesn’t know. And, for the night she’s too tired to push it. So, she checks Thea’s temperature under guise of pressing a kiss to her forehead, “Get some rest.”</p><p>“I will, goodnight Mama.”</p><p>Christina latches onto her the moment Ruby’s back in bed. It’s adorable. Even asleep, she’s just as needy. And, her breast rising and falling against Ruby’s is its own lullaby at this point.</p><p>Once upon a time, a very long time ago, she was fighting her instincts for sleep as she shared a bed with the strange woman who wore her lover’s face. Once upon a time, she flinched when a pale arm threw itself over her waist, or when sour breath teased the hair on the back of her neck.</p><p>In the here and now, Ruby runs a thumb over notched white knuckles. In the here and now, Ruby sinks into Christina’s embrace.</p><p>The babies are okay. Atticus the mind terrorist has been vanquished.</p><p>Ruby’s drifting off to sleep when she hears the snarl of a shoggoth outside, and a rush of steps leading away from the patio.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Getting Christina to agree to go to the sunken ruins is just a matter of time. Time Tic can spend trying to bridge the gap between himself and his oldest.</p><p>He hasn’t been the best man, or the best father to George, but he’s a damn saint in comparison to his own. He has never raised a hand to Georgie or Leti. Never came home stinking of rubbing alcohol looking to pick a fight.</p><p>Some nights he came home late because he couldn’t handle having dinner with a woman he didn’t love, but he always tucked George in to bed.</p><p>Some nights he slept downstairs on the couch--alienating the tenants for sure, but faking so much of his life was exhausting.</p><p>Which--you know, he <em> gets </em>Pop now. It’s like taking a belt sander to your soul every day. If Korea taught him what kind of cruelty he was capable of, then marriage taught him what kind of slow suffering he could endure.</p><p>And, it picks his ass that his son looks to Montrose with more affection than him. That his son calls him, ‘Atticus’, but calls <em> Christina </em>, ‘Sir’. Christina feels comfortable running her fingers over his son’s head. </p><p>It’s part of the emotional terrorism. Spending his birthday on the beach, sure, but being subjected to the judgmental eyes of his extended family. It’s why he left Chicago--well, that and because he was the last Freeman there. Aunt Hippolyta’s in Paris. Dee’s in New York. Pop’s in San Francisco. They’ve all moved on with their lives. New houses. New spouses. </p><p>Pop’s been with Lee for five years now. He’s chilled out, he’s a cute old man now. Tic never thought it possible. </p><p>Dee lives in Harlem with her boyfriend Nate, who she has no plans of marrying because of Communism and feminism or something. Whatever the liberal artists of New York are rambling about when they smoke hash and complain about the government.</p><p>Aunt Hippolyta moved to Stockholm last year, chasing some astronomer she knew as a girl. </p><p>The last family he has in Chicago are present company (and the family bond part is a stretch in the least) and <em> Leti </em>.</p><p>Letitia Fucking Lewis--who is hardly the beloved daughter of the South Side, but Tic felt the daggers stared his way when he gave up on her. Even people who dislike Leti root for her in the long run. And, Tic looked at his family’s old garage, and the old leftover copies of the Safe Negro Travel Guide. Last published 1966. He has no love for this place. Not the soda shop, or the diner. He has fond memories of the baseball field. Playing with Dee, and later George in the July heat. Just memories though. Not concrete feelings.</p><p>Chicago is dirty, and angry, and hollow. Chicago was never really his, and he’s past the point of needing to stay as part of some turf war with Christina.</p><p>Miami is much more his speed. He likes the hot and wet. He likes the women. He likes the cubanos, and the car culture.</p><p>He sure as hell doesn’t miss Chicago winters, or the fucking Bears.</p><p>But, he does miss his son.</p><p>“How’s school? How’s boxing?” he asks when they finally get a moment together.</p><p>George scoffs and shakes his head, “I haven’t taken boxing in six years, Atticus.”</p><p>“You were good. Could’ve gotten a scholarship.”</p><p>George’s face reflects his disgust, “Not that I’d want a sports scholarship, but I’m skipping college anyway.”</p><p>“You’re not going to college?”</p><p>“Gonna follow those old guides, find America, get inspired for my novel by the open road. I just need the raw experience. Meeting beautiful and interesting strangers, finding America’s soul.”</p><p>“You’re gonna get shot doing that,” Atticus pours himself some lemonade.</p><p>“Dad, it’s 1973, not 1955,” George slips, “And besides,” he reveals the pendant dangling from the chain around his neck, “Uncle Chris made me invulnerable.”</p><p>“That just means they’ll try harder,” Tic says.</p><p>“You’re impossible,” George huffs, getting ready to storm out, “You always do this. Whenever Mom had something she cared about, you’d just shit all over it.”</p><p>“Stop talking like a girl,” Tic says, “If you’ve got a problem with me say it like a man.”</p><p>Atticus watches his son whirl on him, straightening to full height. He gets right in Tic’s face, just like his mother used to. He can see her in him. The golds of Leti’s eyes. The set of her jaw. The curve of her cheeks. George rolls his lips and flares his nostrils, sizing Tic up the way he used to his old man.</p><p>“Every good part of you died in the war,” he says, and storms off.</p><p>Leaving Tic gasping for air in the kitchen.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“So your family left during the revolution?”</p><p>“Just after. They wanted to stay but, Dad’s family was Chinese so, they were told to leave,” Mirana scoffs quietly, “Didn’t belong in Cuba, don’t belong here. Don’t belong anywhere. But, we weren’t the only ones living in Miami.”</p><p>“I didn’t even know there were Chinese people living in Cuba,” Ruby says, switching records and sitting down with a cigarette and a glass of bourbon. </p><p>“Not anymore. Lots of Chinese men moved to the island for work, running businesses, cleaning. My great-grandfather was hired to work the sugar fields, met my great-grandmother and saved up to buy her freedom once he finished his contract. My family has this whole long, epic love story about them, but I won’t bore you with the details.”</p><p>“Love stories are always the best details,” Ruby says, “Especially the ones with happy endings.”</p><p>Mirana nods and tucks her hair behind her ears, “My parents were able to get citizenship in Argentina a few years back, and I haven’t seen them since. It’s been lonely. Having Atticus around, well, he’s been so present.”</p><p>Ruby holds her tongue. Tic? Present? Even before he was a shit husband, he was a dreamer with his head in a book.</p><p>“Fixed up my house, helped around the garden.”</p><p>“He’s a real Mr. Fix-It.”</p><p>“How did you and Christina meet? I saw the photoshoot you did back in 66, and while I’m still getting used to the … face swapping thing, I always admired how you looked like the perfect couple.”</p><p>(The shoot in question, well, it was all the rage at the time. The label told her it’d make it easier for her to get on TV. If the public saw her beautiful family. Getting a magazine to actually run photographs of a mixed family was is its own uphill battle. She was lucky to find the one editor with a black wife and a fucking spine in New York. Cameras love William with his foppish good looks. Her favourite photo has him on the floor with Christopher while Isaac and Thea lean against her on the couch.)</p><p>Ruby takes a drag, “She bought me a drink,” leans in as she exhales smoke at Mirana, “Took me home for the best sex of my life, then kept wooing me. The revelation set us back a bit, but,” Ruby smacks her lips, “She was so sweet. How could I not fall in love?”</p><p>“Sounds like a fairy tale,” Mirana says with a sigh.</p><p>As if summoned, in comes Prince Charming in her terrycloth robe and wet braids. The only weapon she brandishes as those eyes Ruby still can’t find it in herself to say no to. They look at each other, because that’s what they do when they enter rooms. Always looking for each other. Always finding a shared smile. A hot look. One that settles between Ruby’s legs.</p><p>Once upon a time, she was a princess and a pauper thinking the prince’s interest would last a month. Then she’d be back to cleaning up after wicked stepsisters. Now she’s got the whole kingdom, castle, and dragon.</p><p>“It was,” she says.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“Did the kid who rented us the boat seem off to you?” Uncle Tic asks as he hooks the boat up to the back of the car.</p><p>“I was too busy fielding the hostility from the scuba gear employees,” Daddy flashes his teeth behind dark glasses and thin lips. He looks sculpted from snow in this light, and furiously matching the general population. So different from him and Uncle Tic who are even blacker from the sun and sticking out like a pair of thumbs.</p><p>“Dad, they won’t stop staring,” Isaac whines.</p><p>“Told you, fucking New Jersey,” Tic says, hands on his hips.</p><p>Even the people he knows here won’t look at him, Isaac laments, as the girls from the other night avoid his gaze.</p><p>“What’s the boat for?” he asks as Dad surveys the map Uncle Tic has out.</p><p>“Doing a bit of pleasure sailing,” Daddy says with a lightness in his voice. Uncle Tic frowns at him, “We have a map to a sunken treasure.”</p><p>An image comes into Isaac’s mind. Standing in front of dubloons, pirate gold, being seen as an explorer like King Solomon’s mines. His exceptionalism outweighing his height and race. Isaac Braithwhite, famous treasure hunter and explorer.</p><p>“We’ll probably find some boards and rocks, Isaac, besides, it’s hardly safe for a boy of your age,” Daddy says, deflating his dreams just like that.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>It’s not a ship they’re after. Well, not entirely. The ship itself ran against a reef. That reef protects a kingdom beneath the waves of the Atlantic ocean. And, in that kingdom sleeps ancient magic and its giant progenitors.</p><p>Look, if she’s going to awaken Cthulhu, she’s not going to put her son within grabbing range of an Outer God.</p><p>“Don’t wake anything up,” Ruby says.</p><p>“That’s not the plan. It’s just to look.”</p><p>Ruby narrows her eyes, “And grab anything not nailed down. Within reason.”</p><p>A smirk, a kiss, a, “That’s my girl.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <em>Ocean is more ancient than the mountains, and freighted with the memories and the dreams of Time.</em>
</p><p>- H. P. Lovecraft</p><p> </p><p>The sun comes in and with it, Atticus.</p><p>“Why aren’t you wearing pajamas?” he yelps, raising a hand in front of his eyes.</p><p>“It’s summer and the children have stopped needing to sleep in our bed to get through the night,” Christina stretches and yawns.</p><p>Atticus turns his to avoid looking at how much more on display she is with the movement.</p><p>“It helps with body temperature regulation and immune system. And, it’s great for intimacy,” she tucks a white T-shirt over her head as she digs a pair of khakis out of the dresser. </p><p>“So are fucking pajamas,” Atticus says hotly.</p><p>“Did you and Leti never sleep nude together? This explains so much. And Mirana? I’ve heard a lot of people loosen up by the second marriage. I wouldn’t know.”</p><p>“You shut the fuck up,” he says.</p><p>She’s got her hair in a ponytail by the time she joins him at the doorway, “Let’s go.”</p><p>It’s a lose on his end, because Christina delights in finding any way to get a rise out of him. With his excitement for the reef he’s too preoccupied to remember to abstain from her petty games.</p><p>They eat a breakfast of hard boiled eggs, toast, and fresh grapes. Cups of coffee are peace treaties, and they finish the pot by emptying it into a canteen. One of coffee, one of water, some sandwiches, and the bag of grapes.</p><p>“I was thinking we could bring the boys,” Tic says. </p><p>“If we’re taking the eldest children then we’ll take George and Thea,” Christina says with an edge, “This trip is her ascension.”</p><p>“Just saying, with Isaac’s height, it would be better to have him around.”</p><p>“He’s fourteen.”</p><p>“He’s got the body of a man.”</p><p>“Body, not mind.”</p><p>“You can’t protect him forever.”</p><p>“Watch me.”</p><p>He sizes her up, “Okay.”</p><p>“We’re going alone. If it’s safe, we can bring the kids for a second trip, but I’m not risking it.”</p><p>Tic snorts.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Nothing, guess I didn’t realize it while it was happening, but you’re always so willing to throw me to the lions, while protecting you and yours.”</p><p>“To be fair, Tic, I threw my father to the lions first.”</p><p>“Guess it’s just nice to see you loving something more than yourself.”</p><p>Atticus takes the keys and the wheel to the boat. It makes good time, skipping along the waves.</p><p>“So, I’ve cross-referenced a lot of reports and drawn a few circles on the map of the coastal shelf on where it might be,” he shouts over the noise, “All are within a fifteen mile range of each other! We should be able to inspect the area to some success, and if not we’ll come back tomorrow.”</p><p>Christina rolls her eyes at him. She speaks to the compass he bought in Adamic until it twists and spins its needle. No longer North. Now, it points to where they want to go.</p><p>“Magic,” she shouts.</p><p>“Shut up!”</p><p>The compass leads them to a patch of ocean that looks like any other. Feels like any other. That is, except Christina’s teeth are chattering and Tic feels like his armpits have pissed themselves.</p><p>“This might be a bad idea,” he says.</p><p>“Wouldn’t be the first time,” she says.</p><p>They do it anyway, falling backwards into the water, and descending into hell of their own volition. Because they are curious, as young Persephone was, as Alice Little was. And, because they are Braithwhites, twin gaping maws in search of power.</p><p>The ocean is dark and deep, but it is not lovely. It’s a humble reminder, that for all her invulnerability, Christina is still very much vulnerable. There is no silver bullet for her to drive around in down here. Her limbs are slowed by water. Reactions to attacks will be just as slow. Thank fuck they didn’t bring the kids, because the thought of anything with maws or teeth or tentacles coming at them would be--</p><p>A hand grabs her shoulder. Atticus gives her a shake, unable to speak through the rebreather, he presses a palm to her rapidly expanding and contracting chest and forces it to slow. Then he points downward. His light illuminates a jungle of seaweed, and below it, glowing, dead eyes.</p><p>They are so fucked.</p><p>He squeezes her again, checks her oxygen, and walks his hand down to her wrist to join their hands, descending with swift movements.</p><p>Just statues. Statues of creatures with bipedal bodies and aquatic features. Men with gills, fat lips, mirrored eyes, and webbed limbs. They hold crossed spears over an entryway. Through it, a sunken city. One with architecture that could be mistaken for Asian or Aztec--all geometry, but with something so Escher-esque. Stairs that go up, and around, with no visible destination.</p><p>A flash of movement has her twisting her body to point the light at it. A school of fish with shimmering scales. Upon second thought, she has so little knowledge of the flora and fauna here that she doubts she could differentiate what is supposed to be and what isn’t. So, she follows the hard lines of Tic’s back, up some stairs to what looks like the entryway to the temple. He tucks himself into an alcove on the side, one populated by sea snails and algae, and makes some military hand gestures at her.</p><p>She is woefully unprepared for this, and yelps against her rebreather as a dragon erupts from the cracks next to her. One with pale eyes, needle teeth, and a wrinkled yellow body. She punches it in the nose and it reels, swinging back and forth, before sullenly retreating.</p><p>Then Tic is pulling her in to the temple. A sky light in the ceiling illuminates furniture that looks like it was pulled out of a sunken Spanish ship. Wooden, slimy, and frozen in time. The hole leads upwards to who knows where. And downwards to who knows where.</p><p>If Titus had designed this little death trap, at least there’d be somewhere with breathable oxygen.</p><p>Spoke too soon. Tic has found a wall covered in carvings and is motioning toward it. Two figures, pressing the same button in mirror. Not too difficult.</p><p>Well, except for the much larger dragon figure emerging in one drawing and eating them.</p><p>Before she can consider what exactly the buttons will actually do, Tic is counting down from three on his fingers.</p><p>Three: Tic, let’s think a minute.</p><p>Two: Jesus Christ give me a second.</p><p>One: shitshitshit.</p><p>A groan of ancient gears, and a hiss, then a new tunnel opens, sucking them in with the water pressure. Christina gropes at the lip of the tunnel, head snapping back to see a writhing body entering the chamber. </p><p>She lets go.</p><p>The tunnel is pure blackness with dips and drops like the water slides she took the kids to last weekend. Finally, the pipe spits them out into a pool at the bottom of a dry chamber.</p><p>She fights with the rebreather, taking it out while Atticus sloshes through the water over to a ladder on the wall.</p><p>“Guess we’re finding another way out,” he says.</p><p>Christina follows him, chuffed by being so useless in this situation that she’s the one dogging the steps. She’s Christina Fucking Braithwhite, usually she’s five steps ahead and letting him do the dirty work. Again, a loving family has made her complacent. Soft. Unprepared. Yes, she can remove a spider from her shrieking daughter’s pillow, but she has no fucking idea how to navigate the underwater temple to Dagon.</p><p>“How much oxygen do you have in your tank?” Tic asks her as they reach the top.</p><p>“I’m at about half way,” she says.</p><p>He sucks his teeth.</p><p>She glances at his, more than half. Her hyperventilating might have hobbled them for the long run.</p><p>“Shoulda told me you were afraid of the water before we got in.”</p><p>There’s a half-illuminated hallway leading away from the chamber. The light of their current room is a  sickly, warm yellow, but the one that leads away from it is the same blue-green as above.</p><p>“The hell was that up there?” she asks.</p><p>“What? The moray eel?” he does a double-take, “Have you really never been to an aquarium?”</p><p>“I was away on business when Ruby took the kids.”</p><p>“That time you and Pop were out west?”</p><p>“Mmhm.”</p><p>It’s a glass passage leading through more ruins. Perfectly air tight, and all the more terrifying for it. She flinches at the sight of tentacles and a sucker plastered against the window.</p><p>“Just an octopus,” Tic says.</p><p>“I know!”</p><p>Another, bigger creature with similar suckers and ghostly skin floats by like a spectre.</p><p>“What’s that?”</p><p>Tic watches its head open into a gaping maw, like the yellow toothed vortex of a lamprey, “I don’t know, walk faster.”</p><p>Which is hard to do in flippers, but they manage it anyway, like mildly concerned ducks. The tunnel takes a turn and holy fuck.</p><p>The currents of the ocean move with the breath of a giant face, belonging to a giant man, slumbering as if it is a rainy day and he has a good book. The Dagon. Dagon. Looks peaceful. His skin is olive, but it could be paler or greener, when not observed through water. His curly black beard moves like seaweed against the current of his own breath. Long, dark lashes fan against his cheeks, but to her shuddering disgust, Christina witnesses crabs crawling out from between his eyelids. From the caverns of his nose wriggle more of those eels. Is he man, or statue? Flesh or breathing stone?</p><p>Does it even matter to a god?</p><p>Sweat is glossy on Tic’s upper lip as he gropes for her fingers. They move slowly, as if even their breaths would be enough to awaken him.</p><p>That is, until Christina sees a flash of gold and looks down. Down between two webbed hands the size of trucks.</p><p>A winged box made of gold leaf so fine it glows, even underwater.</p><p>“Atticus that’s the arc of the covenant,” she whispers.</p><p>It’s enough to make him play the role of Orpheus and turn back.</p><p>“Christina,” his lips barely move.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>He grabs her hand again and leads her. Foolishly, she turns around to see they’re no longer alone in the tunnel. Two men, with luminous, watery eyes, and flapping gill slits in their necks.</p><p>The tunnel winds and bends before leading to another room. One they push the door shut to.</p><p>Christina leans against the wall, catching her breath. She has a blister on her heel that’s going to slow her down.</p><p>“This was a bad idea,” she says.</p><p>“Shit, you think?” he snaps.</p><p>“And you wanted to bring the children!”</p><p>“If we had the kids at least we wouldn’t be outnumbered!” Tic fires back.</p><p>“It’s the bottom of the ocean, Atticus, everything eats everything else down here. We’re always outnumbered!”</p><p>He scoffs and shakes his head, “This really is hell to you, isn’t it?”</p><p>“What does that mean?”</p><p>“No pecking order for you to fit yourself into.”</p><p>“That’s my father, not me.”</p><p>“Isn’t it?”</p><p>She doesn’t have time to argue because more fish men enter through a second door.</p><p>“Wait!” one says.</p><p>Atticus pulls a gun.</p><p>“Hey-hey, cut that shit out, ey? Listen, we recognized the boat from up above. You rent it from Joey?”</p><p>Atticus turns to look at Christina for confirmation that, yes, this fish man is talking to them in a strong South Jersey accent.</p><p>“We rented it from Mayflower Diving and Accessories,” he replies with a tight mouth.</p><p>“See, you should’ve gone further down the boardwalk to Swordfish. Mayflower always skimps you on the oxygen tanks.”</p><p>“Ha!” Christina slaps Atticus’s bicep.</p><p>He gives her a withering look as he moves her hand.</p><p>“We’re sorry to uh, intrude. We were curious,” he half-truths.</p><p>Good boy.</p><p>“You’re the magic users who moved in to Avalon right?” another fish man asks, or woman, it’s not like they have secondary sexual characteristics.</p><p>Christina nods. So, these must be the nosy neighbours.</p><p>“Nice set up,” they say, “You’re Braithwhites aren’t you?”</p><p>“No,” says Tic.</p><p>“Yes,” says Christina.</p><p>They swap a sour look.</p><p>“We made a trade with a,” the fish person looks to another one with bioluminescent purple cheeks, “What was that guy’s name? Daniel Braithwhite?”</p><p>“Nah, it was an S name. Sandy?”</p><p>“Samuel,” Tic says. He points to Christina, “This is his daughter.”</p><p>“Has it really been that long?” Purple Cheeks says, “He was looking for some guard dogs.”</p><p>“The shoggoths?” Christina asks.</p><p>“If you wanna call ‘em that.”</p><p>“What do you call them?” Atticus asks.</p><p>“Argonauts,” he shrugs.</p><p>“Did you come to make a trade?” Purple Cheeks asks.</p><p>Atticus and Christina exchange another loaded look.</p><p>That depends. How much must be given in exchange for what they want.</p><p>“The humans of this coast traded slaves for riches,” Jersey Fish says.</p><p>“Not like that,” Second Fish says, “Just trading kids back and forth. Families intermarrying. The good old fashioned way. But, we’re open to other options. Your old man paid us in a spell that would protect us from harm.”</p><p>Wow, such a secret, thanks Samuel.</p><p>“We have money. We have magic,” Christina says, without offering anything. You can talk around desires long enough until you find what someone is really asking for.</p><p>“There’s actually an elevator to and from the surface,” Purple Cheeks says, “For the next time you come by.”</p><p>“We’re not sure there’ll be a next time,” Tic says politely.</p><p>“Oh, can you show us?” Christina asks. </p><p>He twists his head, eyes narrowed. She blinks slowly. They follow their hosts through halls of sloshing water, and past windows that reveal more creatures. Ones with faceless human heads, long pale arms, and bodies like whales. Crabs with legs like stilts. Black, writhing masses of limbs, peeling the flesh off a downed whale.</p><p>Eventually, the blue turns amber and they’re in another chamber. In its middle, a glass diving bell covered in Adamic runes.</p><p>“How far are we from our boat?” Atticus asks.</p><p>Christina’s shuddering again.</p><p>“About ten miles. Hardly swim-able to a landlubber,” Jersey Fish says. Purple Cheeks smacks him.</p><p>“That’s their word. We’re not supposed to use it.”</p><p>“Which is the best way back then?” Tic asks.</p><p>The fish people share a look, “I suppose we could tow you.”</p><p>“Oh, that isn’t necessary,” Christina begins.</p><p>“Nonsense, you’ve come all this way. It’s the least we could do.”</p><p>“You’ve been gracious enough hosts already, how could we ever repay your kindness?” she says through gritted teeth.</p><p>“How about your first born?” Jersey Fish blinks his second pair of lids and Christina feels her blood go cold.</p><p>And now she knows the cost of their friendship.</p><p>It’s Tic’s arm that stops her from lunging, “Haha, good one,” he laughs.</p><p>They laugh too. Because that’s how social niceties dictate diffusing an uncomfortable social situation.</p><p>They need to get the fuck out of here.</p><p>“The other caverns are flooded, unfortunately, we just have the one with air. Unless you wanna backtrack, but swimming up the tunnel you came through is like pushing rope.”</p><p>Risk drowning on low oxygen or owe the fish men a favour. Such a wonderful choice.</p><p>“Elevator it is,” Christina says.</p><p>Tic gives her a cipher look.</p><p>See, Christina Braithwhite knows The Devil lives in The Details. So, she’s sure that whatever terms their agreement yields will have its own legal vagaries she can slither out of.</p><p>The ascension through the glass diving bell provides a more full image of the city beneath the waves, and its sleeping giant. What looked like a sandbar is the long torso and finned fish body of Dagon. His scales glitter, like the arc, even in the darkness of the waves. All while an entire ecosystem lives and dies crawling on his flesh.</p><p>The fish people neglected to mention the elevator came out on a lighthouse instead of just an open patch of sea. A lighthouse that they could have sent an SOS from.</p><p>“Beauty,” Jersey Fish’s features melt and reshape until he’s just a swarthy man with bulging eyes and stung lips. One she could recognize from the midway or the gas station. The other two shapeshift similarly.</p><p>Of course, like her, they wearing whatever skin it takes to survive in America. Among them, only Tic walks without an alter ego.</p><p>“Pleasure talking business with ya,” Jersey Fish (Ali) says, shaking a hand as Purple Cheeks (an older woman named Clementine) helps them aboard the boat.</p><p>“You as well,” Christina says, all manners.</p><p>It’s only later, when they’re sure the boat is far enough, and the engine is loud enough, that she says, “Those gilled fucks are dreaming if they think they can come within ten feet of Thea.”</p><p>Tic nods, lips pursed and hands on hips, “They took the harpoon gun.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“I brought a harpoon gun with me, and now it’s not here.”</p><p>Fuck.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“Where are we from?” Isaac asks after a documentary on the Igbo people of Nigeria tells them of how these quaint tribes practiced gender non-conformity and the worship of a “Great Spirit” before the Portuguese arrived to teach them civilized Christianity, beginning the Transatlantic Slave Trade. </p><p>Dad, who has been pale and irritable for the past few days chews her lip, deferring to Mama. Mama, who pokes Daddy with her big toe as a way of motivating the continuation of a foot rub. Daddy returns to work.</p><p>Even Chris, who has been drawing the Creature From the Black Lagoon, looks up in question. Uncle Tic and Mirana went to the boardwalk with their kids, and George, leaving the six of them a “quiet family evening”.</p><p>“We’re Haitians, Baby. French, Arawak, and who knows where from in Africa. Somewhere on the coast like Nigeria. Maybe Guinea or Senegal. Maybe all of ‘em. The French didn’t really care about who they were stealing, just that they had bodies to fill the boats.”</p><p>“What’s Arawak?”</p><p>“The Natives of Haiti,” Daddy says, “Your cousin Titus translated the Book of Names with their help.”</p><p>“By translated, and help, she means genocide.”</p><p>“I thought that was implied with the name Titus.”</p><p>This back and forth is hard to read. Unlike the obvious play fights he can’t hear any smiles in their words. The topic is touching on the biggest most sensitive spots Mama and Daddy have. Family. Race relations. Power.</p><p>He’s aware, of course, that he’s the descendant of both slaves and slave owners. And he wonders, sometimes, if his body’s at war with itself. If that’s why he gets sore joints, and pimples, and ingrown hairs. Little skirmishes for the ownership of Isaac Braithwhite-Baptiste.</p><p>“What about the white side, Daddy?” Thea dares to ask from her chair.</p><p>It’s dangerous territory. Asking about Grandfather is a big ‘do not touch’, and he’s the first ancestral hurdle to clear. They know about Titus, a man who Daddy is barely descended from. Everything else has been irrelevant, inconsequential.</p><p>“Our family would love to have people believe it’s all pure white. English, Dutch, maybe a little Danish. But,” she smirks, “It’s all about the illusion of whiteness. Bored wives and daughters have been--”</p><p>“Don’t be gross,” Violet says.</p><p>“--having the gardener or the cook’s children for generations. What I know for sure is that my own grandmother was a French Canadian Jew.”</p><p>Mama frowns at Daddy, “You have never told me this.”</p><p>“Wait, are we Jewish?” Thea asks.</p><p>“We would be, if your grandfather had been born a girl. It was this great, secret shame of his. He was devoted to Bubbe, and resented the racial impurity it gave him. Good thing the albinism on the Braithwhite side is so strong.”</p><p>The stunned silence is deafening before she casually adds, “Oh, and your grandmother was supposed to be this ‘Germanic return to purity’ but she was mostly Welsh. It’s where we get our big feet from.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Ruby may not have been the primary caregiver for her children when they were little, but she does know them. She knows their tells, their weaknesses, and every nightmare too scary. And, she wasn’t born yesterday. So, when she sees Thea creeping around during Tic’s birthday, and asking if they have plans to go to town really innocently, she knows what’s up.</p><p>Her first interviewees are the usual suspects.</p><p>“Is your sister seeing a boy?” she asks.</p><p>“Snitches get stitches,” Christopher says when she asks him at the breakfast table. Violet nods in agreement from her high chair.</p><p>“Yep,” Isaac says when he comes in from his run, “White boy.”</p><p>Her mixed daughter is messing around with some rich white boy? Old Jersey money boys? That’s a kind of trouble she doesn’t want for her little girl.</p><p>Christina takes the news well.</p><p>“Where are you going?” Ruby asks.</p><p>“I’m gonna find the boy and find out his true intentions.”</p><p>Ruby reels her back in.</p><p>“What? Are you gonna tell me to respect her privacy and not to follow this little shithead around?”</p><p>Ruby kisses her wife’s hand, “Of course not. I was just gonna suggest we wait until Leti gets here and ask her to make a scrying pool instead of trying to find places to hide the car while following a boy mow lawns all day.”</p><p>Christina kisses her soundly, “You’re right. You’re right and I love your brain.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>She shouldn’t like him so much. He’s pretty. Pretty like a magazine, but more masculine. He’s showing off that smirk in polo monthly, not <em> Tiger Beat </em>. He’s old money handsome, with a lean torso and tight shoulders, from lacrosse he says. But, he’s also got long lashes, and soft lips, and he really likes her. He brings flowers, and pulls out her chair, and drives around with her in his car. All, in public. Not in secret. No matter how much people stare.</p><p>So, when the opportunity presents itself, she does invite him over.</p><p>“So, your parents aren’t home?” intent is strong in Warren’s eyes as he drifts further into Thea’s orbit. As much as he can drift while still leaning against the doorjamb. </p><p>“They’re getting dinner with my uncle and his new wife since they’re going back to Florida on Monday.”</p><p>“Mmhm. And your brothers and cousin are having a pancake party with babies?”</p><p>She nods, rolling her lips and tucking her hair behind her ears. </p><p>“Well, whatever should we get up to?”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“Do you think we can steal the arc between now and Monday?” Tic asks.</p><p>Wheeling seagulls cry, making Mirana yelp and hide her face in Ruby’s shoulder. It makes him wish he had a camera, and with that, think of how Leti always had one ready for moments like this. </p><p>William’s face is softly contemplative. Smugly at ease even, as he taps a cigarette out of its case.</p><p>“Well, you’re the master of improvisation here, Tic. I don’t like doing anything without some trial and error.”</p><p>“Yes, but even with the preparation we have, do you think we could outrun a giant god?”</p><p>“A god who might be dead or spellbound,” William replies.</p><p>“Please, anything with an obvious treasure at its feet is due to wake up the moment you take it. That’s a fact,” Tic says.</p><p>“Just because something’s true in your pulp fiction…”</p><p>He gives him a long withering look. William rocks his head back and forth, relenting that point to him. </p><p>“So, what do you propose?”</p><p>“What are you two talking about?” Ruby announces herself with pushing a heavily laden ice cream spoon into her husband’s face. William accepts the offering over his own chocolate vanilla cone. </p><p>“Stealing the Arc of the Covenant,” he says.</p><p>“Mmm, how big was Dagon?”</p><p>“Big enough to be a considerable threat.”</p><p>Ruby sucks her teeth, cracking a peanut between her molars, “And these fish men know where we live?”</p><p>“Well, we do have magical protection on the house.”</p><p>“Except your old man taught them that spell, so they could reverse-engineer it.”</p><p>“What would you do with the arc if you had it?” Mirana chimes in.</p><p>Tic and William glance at each other.</p><p>“Well, it can’t fall into the wrong hands,” Tic begins.</p><p>“Who are the right hands?” Mirana asks.</p><p><em> Ours </em>, goes unspoken.</p><p>She raises an eyebrow, licking her own popsicle, “Atticus, I just think that you’ve already done the pirate thing. I know things are tight with the business right now, but we don’t need cursed treasure. We’ll get by.”</p><p>William can’t help the way his eyes creep over to his cousin, feeling the warmth of Ruby’s hand at his weight.</p><p><em> You gave him the money? </em>Two squeezes of his hip asks.</p><p>He nods.</p><p>Tic scrubs a hand over his face, “Yeah, you’re right,” and he kisses his wife.</p><p>It’s later, when they’re throwing baseballs at bottles on the midway that Christina asks, “I thought I gave you the entirety of Ardham’s property value in cash. Are you really hard up?”</p><p>“The business is slow this time of year, but I’ve got plenty of money,” Tic says.</p><p>“Wait, does Mirana not know?” she pauses to turn with her whole body.</p><p>Tic stretches to loosen up his throw, cracking his neck and pursing his laps, “People act differently when they know you’ve got money. I’ll tell her when we’ve been married a little longer. I tell her we’re comfortable. She just worries.”</p><p>The last ball goes wide and the ladies return from freshening up.</p><p>“You call that a throw?” Ruby says, butting William’s shoulder with her chin, “Put more down. I’ll get you a teddy bear, baby.”</p><p>William smiles that wide fox smile, nodding to the teenager behind the counter to stack the bottles back up.</p><p>Ruby could’ve gone pro. If life had been that way. If there were pro roles for black women. If she’d honed that skill like cards and guitars. Still, she taught Dee how to throw a screwball and how to bat left handed.</p><p>Needless to say, she knocks the bottles down in one try.</p><p>William picks out a stuffed lion with a lopsided smile that looks more like a scream.</p><p>“Early birthday present for Violet,” he suggests, “Rightfully won by my hero,” and kisses her.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>He’s got blond hair everywhere, even his leg hairs are blond. He’s pretty, and pale, and soft, and she likes sharing a bed with him. He takes her mind off Harvard, and her debut, and James. </p><p>Warren is a vacation from all that. One she might live in. It could be her and Warren, living like Audrey and Cary in East Coast high society. Her showing up to every function in a new devastating outfit. Him, the lovestruck arm candy. Like Mama and Daddy.</p><p>“It was good for you, right?” he asks. </p><p>“Yes,” she lies.</p><p>“Are you sure it was your first time?” he asks.</p><p>“Yes. Why?”</p><p>“You’re just so confident all the team, without the kind of tease way girls who never give it up are.”</p><p>“Thanks?” Thea says.</p><p>“It’s hot and,” he looks down, “Your body’s so different from my dad’s porn mags.”</p><p>The hungriness of his gaze doesn’t feel empowering anymore. It feels like he’s taking pictures with his eyes.</p><p>“My parents should be home soon,” she says, brushing him off.</p><p>“Did I see that your old man has a ‘65 Mustang? Gorgeous car. Do you think we can drive it around some time?”</p><p>“Mama bought him that one for their tenth anniversary. I think your boxers are at the foot of the bed.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>She should know something is up when Tic lingers after they all get off the Ferris Wheel. He’s got that hangdog look about him. The same way he liked to make himself smaller, but still beg for attention that he had as a scrawny kid. Ruby narrows her eyes, falling into step with him.</p><p>Christina and Mirana have walked ahead, talking animatedly about the kids. Last she heard they were imitating baby yawns.</p><p>“How’s Leti?” Tic asks.</p><p>“That’s none of your damn business,” Ruby fires back.</p><p>He ducks his head, properly chastised.</p><p>“If you must know, she’s good. Better than she was.” She drops the obvious, <em> when you two were married </em>.</p><p>“She got a fella?” he asks.</p><p>“Now that’s really none of your business.”</p><p>“I know, it’s just,” he takes his glasses off and scrubs at his face, “I spent so much time resenting her when we were married that I forgot she was one of my best friends. I miss her.”</p><p>He’s still ruminating on what he wants to say, so she lets him. It’s not often that she does, but she wants to know. What is going on in that clockwork brain of his.</p><p>“When we were down there on the bottom of the ocean, I just kept thinking: <em> if Leti were here we’d be able to pull it off </em>. Me and ‘Stina both get stuck in our heads. Leti just,” he cuts the air with his hand.</p><p>“She’s all impulse,” Ruby laughs.</p><p>“No second thoughts. No fear. I think I hated it. Or loved it. Both, I think.”</p><p>She sighs, “I know what you mean.”</p><p>“Should I stay? And at least … say hi, apologize to her?”</p><p>“Are you asking for my opinion or my permission, Atticus?”</p><p>He looks up at her with big liquid eyes, stretching bait out in front of him. She pushes past, rejoining the sane part of the pack.</p><p>“Do as thou wilt,” she tells him.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“Why the hell is everyone so sourfaced?” Leti arrives with a heat wave and a red gingham dress that is both conservative and filthy. She’s snapping gum, hands on her hips, looking the same way she did twenty years ago, if only a bit more tired.</p><p>Tic, like the hangdog he is, creeps out of the kitchen with an apologetic smile.</p><p>“Hey Leti…”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>When George was growing up he couldn’t picture holding hands with the girl he liked. He could picture them arguing though. He’d yell, and she’d yell, and they’d meet in the middle with a kiss because that was romance.</p><p>Living with Auntie and Uncle was the change of pace he needed. They gave him a nice room, not some stale basement cot. No, he had a window James could throw stones at.</p><p>And, he could have James in his room so long as he’d ring the bell instead of damaging the antique windows and scaring the neighbours.</p><p>It still felt like his guts had been replaced with snakes. Living in that big bright house. Having Uncle drive him to boxing until one day he just couldn’t anymore.</p><p>“How about wrestling?” he offered, as he breezed it, bringing George’s laundry and fixing his bed. “Get’s you closer to the action,” he said so lightly George almost didn’t get the implication.</p><p>“I don’t know if that’s safe,” he just sighed</p><p>“It’s the right age to blame it on a stiff wind, might impress your fella--or make him jealous.” Uncle always cups George’s head with both hands. Been doing it since he was a baby who cried in every pair of hands except those--or so he’s heard. It’s family lore. Not real, maybe? Realer than real. The chosen truth anyway. Like folklore instead of the black and white type of history.</p><p><em> You better be leery of your uncle, she’s the white devil </em>, Mama always said.</p><p>“Hugging does sound better than hitting at this point,” George said, leaning into the devil’s touch, because it’s soft. </p><p>He still picked fights with James he didn’t need to, and kept things, instead of talking them out. All these artifacts of his parents’ marriage he wasn’t sure he was holding.</p><p>Right now, he is holding his half-sister and rocking with bubbly nerves as he watches the dark shapes of his parents gesture on the sand. </p><p>“You want some cake, Baby?” Ruby fixes the tag on the back of his shirt as she asks.</p><p>“Nah, I’m good, Auntie,” he smiles in a way that he hopes sell it.</p><p>“I’m going to do some Tai Chi with the boys downstairs, George, do you want to come with?” Mirana asks.</p><p>She really is too much. Pop’s younger model wife with her hippie peace and love and her amazing rice dishes. She wears loose clothing and cares about the baby’s allergies. He’s like seven months old, what’s he gonna have? A sneezing fit from breast milk.</p><p>More than all that, he hates how accepting everyone else is of her. What’s the point of snooty, rich family if they aren’t making snide remarks about money at every opportunity? Austen lied to him. </p><p>He still passes Xio over to her mother and follows Uncle when she fetches him to help her work on one of her <em> many cars </em>. </p><p>If he kept a camera on him like Mama he’d take a photo of Uncle like this. Cigarette tucked behind one ear, round black sunglasses, and dressed like a chic greasemonkey. </p><p>“Pass me that socket wrench, Georgie?” she says.</p><p>He does.</p><p>The quiet collaboration lasts not three minutes before he sighs loudly and leans against the fan, “I don’t want them to fight, but I don’t want them to make up either.”</p><p>Uncle stays quiet, letting him think and talk.</p><p>“Not that I want them to hate each other, it’s just…”</p><p>Uncle lowers his sunglasses, glassy pale eyes giving him full attention.</p><p>“If they could get along, why didn’t they do it when it mattered?”</p><p>George fingers the oil dipstick as he chews his lip, “Was I not worth it?”</p><p>Uncle’s fingers are unyielding on the back of George’s neck as he steers him in, pressing lips to his head. “You are. Tic and Leti have been like this since before you were born, Georgie. It’s not your fault.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>George actually hugs him as he leaves.</p><p>Tic makes sure to cradle his head right. The way he didn’t the first time.</p><p>“Please come and visit me, please,” he pleads.</p><p>George nods.</p><p>They’ll see if that means anything.</p><p>Ruby’s ‘generous’ enough to send them away with her greatest hits to accompany the muted adoration she shows Mirana in Leti’s presence.</p><p>William’s standing in the driveway with a grease thumbprint on his nose. Tic looks at him, eyes hidden by shades and thinks:</p><p>
  <em> You are not my brother. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> You are not my sister either. </em>
</p><p>He hugs him though, and breathes against his neck, “You ruined my life.”</p><p>“You didn’t need my help for that,” he rasps back.</p><p>Tic slaps his back, “Love you.”</p><p>It’s what finally gets the smug bastard to shut up.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“So, you need me to make sure white boy’s trouble?” Leti slips into the jacuzzi with a pleased groan.</p><p>She’s a prized feline basking in any riches. The rickety, haunted mansion she manages is not reflective of Leti. If anything, it’s the bones of Eloise Baptiste. She raised her daughters better. Marched them up those fancy department stores because Baptiste women are made for diamonds and pearls. The same reason why the hefty Braithwhite rock looks so good on Ruby’s finger. That same finger fixes the little flyaway blonde hairs escaping Christina’s bun. </p><p>The sight used to disgust Leti because she was watching her sister allow herself to be trapped in that house with that monster.</p><p>Seventeen years of waiting for the shoe drop. Any day now.</p><p>Now, she’s reluctant to admit the source of the gnawing is envy. Two big houses, garage full of cars, stable full of kids, and not so much as a whiff of a mistress. No, they’re as sickeningly in love as they were the day Ruby hauled Christina’s half-drugged ass into that portal.</p><p>It’s not even the list of expenses making her smile falter.</p><p>She misses sharing a bed with another body. She misses inside jokes and handshakes. She misses being a team.</p><p>And, that’s why she swallowed her pride for the millionth time to accept Tic’s apology. </p><p>“He’s a white boy from Jersey, we know he’s trouble,” Ruby says.</p><p>“We just need something concrete,” Christina says, stretching spider fingers along Ruby’s arm.</p><p>“And if there is nothing?” Leti takes a sip of her drink.</p><p>It’s Ruby who speaks, “Thea listens to you.”</p><p>Leti tucks her lips against her teeth. Alright then. Some blind distrust for a white man coming right up.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>The water on the first floor tastes better and that’s her story, Thea decides as she downs the glass she’s poured herself.</p><p>“Jesus,” she hisses as she turns around to find her parents and aunt in terrycloth robes looking weirdly guilty. Aunt Leti folds her arms. Daddy opens her mouth.</p><p>“No, I don’t wanna know,” Thea says, pinching her nose as she shuffles off towards the stairs.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>He told all his friends she did things she didn’t. That she let him have her body in this way and that. That he was only with her because he knew <em> black girls were freaky </em> . He imitated the face she made when she faked it to the boys, and they <em> laugh </em>.</p><p>She cries fat angry tears and drags a stick through the sand as she marches against it. The wind carries her scream as she whips the stick into the ocean, narrowly missing the deep one spying on her.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Her ascension comes just after Violet’s third birthday.</p><p>“This isn’t even at an Equinox or Solstice,” she whines as Mama and Aunt Leti wash her arms and legs.</p><p>“Not on this planet, anyway,” Mama says with that kind of ancient vagueness she gets sometimes. It only further irritates Thea.</p><p>“Whatever, I don’t see why we couldn’t do this at home where sane people can’t walk in on me shouting gibberish in a robe.”</p><p>Aunt Leti snickers and turns to Mama, “It is pretty ridiculous.”</p><p>Mama’s mouth tugs at the corner in the mirror. Thea tilts her head, brushes her finger against her necklace and observes their similarities. She’s like a xerox of her mother. Same eyes, same jaw, same mouth. Just a little less.</p><p>She doesn’t want to be her mother.</p><p>But, she doesn’t not-want to. She still looks at marquees and billboards boasting Ruby Baptiste and thinks with pride, <em> That’s My Mama. </em></p><p>Her mother, who is removing the necklace from her neck. Thea tries to cling to it.</p><p>“You get to make your own now,” Mama says, pulling her own neckline wide to reveal her Mark of Cain. Right over her heart, but splitting it is an white starburst of a scar. It staggers Thea’s breath. She’s had baths with her mother, seen her in lower cut swimsuits before and never seen either marks.</p><p>“It’s a glamour,” Mama explains, fixing her lipstick in the mirror.</p><p>“What’s the white one?”</p><p>“My first big spell, it connects me and your father. Tying our life and fate lines.”</p><p>Aunt Leti’s lip corners turn downward and she focuses her gaze on a thread in Thea’s robe.</p><p>“Connects how?” Thea asks.</p><p>“Well,” Mama’s voice turns husky, uncomfortable, “Should one of us expire first then the other should follow simultaneously.”</p><p>She gets the overly-technical language when avoiding the truth from being married to Daddy for twenty years.</p><p>“It’s a magical suicide pact,” Aunt Leti looks up with red eyes and bared teeth. “Your Mama claims to never have been afraid of your Daddy, but was so scared of her that she preyed on the bitch’s self-preservation as a way of avoiding murder.”</p><p>It reminds Thea of something Chris said during a game of Spades this summer. It was to answer the question Isaac posed: “What do you think would happen if Dad died? I know Mama would be sad ‘n all, but it wouldn’t break her the way it would him.”</p><p>“Mama would be devastated if Daddy died. She’d dedicated her life to revenge on whoever did it.” she said.</p><p>“What if Dad dies of cancer?” Christopher posed.</p><p>“Then she’d dedicate herself to revenge on cancer,” Thea shrugged, throwing down her trump card and taking the trick.</p><p>“I dunno, I think Dad would become one of those Zodiac Killer types,” Isaac said with a half-laugh as he followed her into the next round.</p><p>“What makes you think he isn’t already?” Christopher said.</p><p>That’s what he said that’s been having her too on edge to eat her breakfast. That and the grey colour of the sea. There’s something brewing, and the crackle Mama and Daddy have had all week has been … illuminating.</p><p>Her parents have never been normal. Whether it’s their contrasting tones, or their adoration, they’ve always been a set apart of other parents. This is different. This is her parents being different from other humans.</p><p>It’s never frightened her before.</p><p>The path to the gazebo is illuminated by torches that look like glowing eyes in the ocean. Its waves are black, sucking back so much and then exhale-exhale-exhale.</p><p>Aunt Leti stops at the edge of the torches and pulls her into a hug.</p><p>“You don’t gotta do anything, okay?” she whispers in her ear.</p><p>Thea nods, feeling Mama’s eyes burning holes in her back. She fixes Thea’s hair, always with some comment about how she’s wearing it, or if it needs a cut. She can’t read that in Mama’s eyes right now. She can’t read anything.</p><p>Daddy sticks out of her robe like white bone. With closed eyes she seems almost serene, opening them to reveal a bright madness.</p><p>She pulls Thea forward with her palms flush to her jaw.</p><p>“Thea Lilith Braithwhite-Baptiste. Firstborn Daughter of Ruby Baptiste and Christina Braithwhite. Child of my blood. Blood of the first witches. Of Tibuta. Of Abigail Williams,” Daddy pauses to grab Thea by the chin, “The perfect heir.”</p><p>She takes a breath, looking to the ceiling, “Most men only achieve one spell, translated from a fragment of The Language of Adam, in their lifetimes. You, my daughter, have been raised with it as a mother tongue. Your spells will not be confined to translations. You are the new world order.”</p><p>Her hands slide down, cupping Thea’s shoulders, “So go forth, and write the first new spell in The Book of Lilith.”</p><p>Daddy steps aside to reveal a fully-laden altar, complete with one of the swords from the wall in their bedroom. It’s not that catching her eye though. No, her eyes glide upward, behind the altar. On the beach.</p><p>Shackled between two staves dangles Warren. </p><p>Her guts roil.</p><p>The wool of one reality is pulled back, revealing the stark, non-fuzzy image beneath. </p><p>She knows.</p><p>She’s always known.</p><p>They didn’t always lock the basement, and they didn’t always have The Bodies in metal cases. She came downstairs when she was barely old enough to walk and found the redheaded woman napping next to Daddy.</p><p>Except, Daddy was the one who found her there and scooped her up. He scolded her about the basement and danger and not going through Daddy’s things.</p><p>She’s seen Mama scrubbing blood from her nailbeds, and she’s watched Daddy kick the ladder out from Freddy’s dad.</p><p>She’s just chosen not to see it. It’s been under lock and key for all this time. A reality that is impossible with her reality. Her parents can’t be wicked or evil any more than people’s stuffy parents are. In abstract ways, like voting for the wrong president, or hating Volkswagens. They can’t be like.</p><p>Well, kidnappers, serial killers, and arsonists (she’s not sure about the last one, but she has suspicions).</p><p>Warren’s barely lucid, but he moves when he sees her.</p><p>“Thea! You gotta help me. These crazy bitches kidnapped me!”</p><p>Breath catches in her throat. She turns to Daddy, joined by hand with Mama. This has to be a joke.</p><p>“What the fuck?” she says with all the attitude she can muster, “Dad, what the fuck even is this?”</p><p>His lip quivers, eyes unmoving, “Your ascension, Thea.”</p><p>“And what am I supposed to here?”</p><p>“A spell requires a body,” Mama provides.</p><p>“Yes, but the body is mine. I am the conduit!”</p><p>Daddy shakes her head, “The energy needed to break through reality itself--it requires more than one human, and you don’t want to be the one drained.”</p><p>“It’s easier than you think, Baby. Easier than anyone tells you,” Mama says. She comes forward to hand Thea the knife. “Easier than they want you to know.”</p><p>“It’s just energy, Thea. He’ll stop being animated, but his essence isn’t going to disappear.”</p><p>Like it’s some kind of reassurance.</p><p>“What the fuck? No!” she jerks away from them.</p><p>“Thea. Kill him and be set free.”</p><p>“No! This is insane! You’re insane.”</p><p>“Thea,” Mama’s voice goes hard.</p><p>“No! How the hell can you just stand there and tell me to do this like it’s normal?!”</p><p>“Kill him. I am your father and you will obey me!” a white hand, once a comforting touch, turns to a claw as it pulls at Thea’s wrist.</p><p>She twists in the sand and recoils at the sight she finds.</p><p>A monster. One with pale skin and needle teeth and slitted caverns where eyes used to be. A pale, wretched thing with Adamic symbols carved into its skin as shining scars. </p><p>She blinks, hoping it’s just a trick of the light, the twisting spirals of magic.</p><p>Realization hits her with revulsion.</p><p>This <em> thing </em>is her father. The final nesting doll at the base of her father. A demon. She turns to her mother, hoping for something. Salvation, or reassurance.</p><p>Instead she’s faced with the creature’s equal. Dark and covered with many eyes, all focused on different points. </p><p><em> It’s a glamour </em>, Mama said.</p><p>She just didn’t know how much.</p><p>Running is the only thing to do at this point. Sand skitters as she trips on herself in her rush to escape. But, her intention and trajectory are interrupted by a solid body. Isaac towers over her, face still as marble. He reaches past her, grabbing the dagger, discarded in the sand. He makes strides through the circle, to where Warren is strung up.</p><p>The words he speaks in Lilith are those of gratitude, submission, and apology.</p><p><em> “Give me a veil of innocence. So none may see me as a threat for so long as I breathe,” </em>he says, and cuts Warren, impressively, from Navel to chest, working the knife against the bone of the ribcage. Guts spill forth, and he decides against it, going for the jugular instead. Thea can’t look. Can’t see her little brother baptise himself in death with an open mouth.</p><p>“I’m dreaming, I’m dreaming,” she chants as a mantra.</p><p>The monsters that birthed her begin to chant in Lilith, rejoicing for the bloodline. For the legacy. For the prodigal Braithwhite-Baptiste son. For Isaac, the true believer. Their faith made into flesh. Isaac joins them, and the skies tear open with a crack of thunder. The waves slam against the sand. It’s as if the Earth is crying. Or celebrating. Like a scream that could be joy or agony. </p><p>Rain hammers Thea’s body, and the wind pulls at her robes. She scurries, on her hands and knees to the driftwood fort, hiding from the storm. From what she’s just witnessed.</p><p>She doesn’t know how long she rocks, waiting for death and hoping to wake from this nightmare. It’s long enough for the storm to die down, and for her to hear approaching figures. She curls herself tighter, hoping death will be painless.</p><p>Feet move closer to her and she throws her arms out as a shield.</p><p>Mother’s voice is weary as she says, <em> “Forget.” </em></p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>She doesn’t forget.</p><p>She doesn’t trust either.</p><p>Her smiles through breakfast are fake. Any emotion she feels must be pressed down and hidden. She must be confused by Daddy’s cold fury and Mama’s quiet disappointment. Isaac preens with his newfound power. Christopher looks at her with pity.</p><p>She’s a failure, but she’s free now. Or, she will be, if she can grin and bear through her Debutante Ball and graduation. She and Father are a sight in their matching reds and blues. George and James even escort her. She smiles through her Valedictorian speech, and on the drive to Boston from Chicago.</p><p>Father might even be forgiving her, she finds, as he keeps stalling their departure, not wanting to leave her behind.</p><p>She waves from the window of her dorm room and finally lets the smile slide off. Relaxes her jaw.</p><p>And, promptly switches her address.</p><p>She cuts and dyes her hair (chin length and red) and wears a pair of glasses. To others she introduces herself as Thea Lewis, and tells them she is an orphan raised by her aunt.</p><p>It’s four years before she so much as answers a call from her family.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <b>Summer. 1977</b>
</p><p> </p><p>To live in Boston is to make amends with the cold spit and uncaring gaze of the Atlantic Ocean. Still, she’s avoided a beach for four years. Having it be there to meet her is <em> something </em>.</p><p>
  <em> “It’s your father’s birthday. Can we expect you?” </em>
</p><p>Mama didn’t bother with dressing up the guilt trip this year. The way she dreads mid-June with its solstice and the birth of her father.</p><p>Thea Lewis nurses her lip, looking at the exit sign and wondering if they should turn back. If it’s too late, she’s been dodging silver cars for the ticking years of her estrangement. Daddy’s been always too good at Hide and Seek, and she’s always been too drawn to his games to disengage.</p><p>Still, he’s kept his promise by keeping distant, and so she returns to him like the tide.</p><p>Trepidation and excitement twist in her belly--a mixture that threatens to spill up her throat like butterflies.</p><p>Steven’s got a hand on her thigh, and his eye on the road, humming along to the radio. She’s told him the truth. About having parents, not the myriad of other truths she’s hidden beneath her tongue over their courtship.</p><p>(“So they’re a little two faced. Whose parents’ aren’t?”</p><p>“I didn’t say ‘two-faced’, Steven. I said they’re literally different people depending on the day.”</p><p>“Well, those people can’t be bad if they raised someone like you.)</p><p>Where does one start.</p><p>The last chance at escape disappears into the rearview mirror as Steven turns down on Sandpiper Lane and Thea feels her homecoming like prophecy.</p><p>There’s still that round black window on the second floor, and the house still has that garish modern tilt to the roof. Daddy’s car is out front, sleek as ever, despite being ancient at this point. There’s a new silver car next to it, an Impala that Steven whistles at.</p><p>“You mentioned your old man was into cars but you didn’t tell me his taste was fantastic.”</p><p>Thea grimaces with some pride.</p><p>It is Daddy who greets them of course, standing at the door, waiting in powder blue slacks, black shirt, pink sweater tied around his neck. He’s different though. Not older per se, but more himself. His fingers are long like hers are long, and there’s a dimple in his chin where there was none before.</p><p>This is a different spell.</p><p>“You must be Steven,” he says, slick as a snake, and shakes Steven’s hand.</p><p>“Good to meet you, Sir,” Steven says, all smiles.</p><p>Daddy’s eyes meet Steven’s in that faux-warmness, but his gaze is fixed on Thea.</p><p>“Welcome home, Sweetheart,” he says, drawing Thea into his arms.</p><p>She wants to bite, spit, and claw at his false face. She wants to expose him as he is--her as she is, and she wants to rip her down from the heavens and back to Earth to atone for what she’s done. Instead, in a Herculean effort, Thea exhales against his shoulder, and inhales the comfort of his cologne.</p><p>He feels like a rock in a stormy sea, and she can feel the reassuring weight of his hand on the back of her head. Years of being bathed, and cradled, and soothed by this man seem to overwhelm the rage that sits at the back of her mouth.</p><p>For now.</p><p>“Everyone here?” she asks.</p><p>“Everyone,” he says, “Steven, can I get you something to drink?”</p><p>Thea watches the way her father pulls Steven aside, for drinks and conversation of course, but does nothing to protect him. Instead, she finds her aunt smoking on the patio.</p><p>“Sorry, just had to come out here for a break--” Leti begins, before stopping at the sight of her. She flicks the match in her fingers with some disappointment, “Ah. You came.”</p><p>“You came,” Thea volleys back.</p><p>She hears the slap of feet and the giggling of children and looks up to see her sister and cousins running on the pool deck. Something Mama never let the three eldest get away with. It hits her though, like a little fist. Vi-Vi’s almost seven now, long hair trailing behind her in braids. She has a better voice to speak her little deep thoughts, and legs to run away from bathtime. And, Thea missed it all.</p><p>“Family’s important. Everything else fades,” Leti says, voice dry with ash and weariness, “Doesn’t make you feel like shit any less.” She sucks the end of her cigarette, eyes shaded. “Your Mama will wanna see you. She’s downstairs.”</p><p>They can discuss who betrayed who in the long run later.</p><p>“How are you?” Thea asks instead.</p><p>Leti puffs out a laugh and shakes her head, “Trying to figure out where I belong these days. If anywhere. Looking back at the last twenty years and wondering what any of it was for.”</p><p>Thea rubs her arms, despite the balmy warmth, “Well, you’d better figure it out because I’ll be asking you the same questions in a decade.”</p><p>That gets her a bittersweet smile and a touch to the chin, “I will. I always do. More importantly, what got you back here? You seemed pretty adamant at Christmas.”</p><p>Thea rubs the back of her neck, remembering the discussion over cigarettes and Irish coffees on Diana’s stoop. </p><p>“I got realistic. Been applying to a bunch of firms. Getting lots of <em> ‘we’d love to hire you, but’ </em>. I know my shit. I have good grades. I just don’t have--”</p><p>“Connections,” Leti finishes.</p><p>“It’s not fucking fair,” Thea sighs, “I’ve seen shit idiots in my class get in with Goodwyn Procter while I’m pounding the pavement.”</p><p>“You’ve already got two strikes against you before you get in the door, Kid. Have you tried black firms?”</p><p>“Is it bad that I feel like that’s quitting?”</p><p>“Giving into segregation? Or having to be the only advocate for yourself in the room? I think you’ve gotta pick.”</p><p>Thea sighs.</p><p>Suspicious giggling draws her to the opposite of the pool deck, where she finds the trio of little ‘uns trying to look innocent at her approach.</p><p>Violet gives her a hard stare, turning away to keep fiddling with whatever it is they’re doing.</p><p>“Hey guys!”</p><p>“Who are you?” Xiomara asks.</p><p>“I’m your cousin, Thea, last time we say each other you were just little.”</p><p>“I don’t remember you.”</p><p>“She’s my big sister,” Violet says finally.</p><p>“Whatcha got there, Vi-Vi?”</p><p>“Don’t call me that!” she stamps a foot.</p><p>“Sorry, didn’t realize you were too cool for nicknames now, brat.”</p><p>Violet is incensed, whipping to look at Thea with Daddy’s pout.</p><p>Diego shoots his water pistol at Thea, who accepts getting a wet dress as penance for four years of incommunicado.</p><p>A flash of cloth reveals glimmering gold. What she thought was a water cooler is something else. A chest, heavily laden and carved with ancient symbols.</p><p>“What the hell is that?” she asks.</p><p>Violet puts a finger to her lips, “Shhh.”</p><p>So, she doesn’t ask. Instead she plays with them, tossing them each into the pool like some vengeful giant. And, when she’s panting and her arms are sore, there’s nowhere else to hide. To Mama’s side she must return.</p><p>With a deep breath, Thea descends.</p><p>“--so they’ve been talking this kid up to me like he’s the second coming, and I come in to meet him, and he is literally child sized.”</p><p>Chris and Isaac laugh, throwing in their cards and watching Mirana curse in Spanish at her losing hand.</p><p>Mama’s eyes dart to her with the creak of the stare. Normal, warm brown eyes that she associates instinctively with the word, <em> “Mama” </em>. The same way she associates it with a proud smile and a warm hand.</p><p>“Thea,” she says.</p><p>It’s all she needs to say.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>They don’t dislike Martin. They suspect his whiteness, but he’s polite. He’s courteous. He tells the right jokes. Eats with the right manners. </p><p>But, then, they don’t know about his silent treatments. Or the way he tells her how violent he can get when he breaks a plate instead of her nose.</p><p>“We’re gonna take a walk,” she says, once everything is cleaned up.</p><p>“Watch out for the rain,” Mama says.</p><p>“We won’t be that long,” Thea smiles.</p><p>Daddy stands in the door, watching them go.</p><p>“Your parents seem nice,” he says, “I got talking to your uncle. He fought in Korea, yeah?”</p><p>“Mmhm.”</p><p>“So, is he your mom’s brother or your dad’s, because well, the race thing, but he and your dad--”</p><p>“They’re cousins,” Thea supplies, “Distant cousins, but very close.”</p><p>This is a good spot for it. Almost the same as last time. Minus a few things of course.</p><p>She doesn’t need a knife, she’s always been her own knife.</p><p>Steven, another almost. Another future door that she is locking of her own volition. Sweet Steven, who always chews with his mouth open, and can’t stay on rhythm to save his life. Well, if he had then he wouldn’t be clawing at the new opening on his throat.</p><p>It’s what the sky has been waiting for. The buzzing in her head explodes like flies, turning clouds into rain that pummels sand and surf alike.</p><p>It turns the world grey. Not black or white. Steven’s blood is a welcome splash of colour, but the surge is already feeding on it. Turning it pale pink in frothing water. She can see the assembly of eager crabs, looking for fresh iron and ichor to feed on. They tickle, running over her toes, accepting her offering.</p><p>Life. Consume or be consumed. To believe you are removed is a callous arrogance. One whose loving arms she was raised in.</p><p>Those same arms wrap around her.</p><p>“Thea!” Daddy’s voice barely caries--just a nasally Boston whine on the screaming wind.</p><p>Despite the proximity, all Thea can feel is distance. Nothing is more important than what catches her eye in the pulsing waves. Her whole body shakes and shudders, not from the rain, but from the blackened gaze of a man.</p><p>A giant man, with hair like ropes of seaweed, twisting through the water. A man with a mouth full of coral teeth. One who looks through her to see the demon clutching her close.</p><p>His mouth widens, sucking back the tide on his inhale, taking Steven and the mounting mass of crabs roiling into his teeth.</p><p>But, when he speaks it is with the warm sternness of a parent, <em> “Return the Arc.” </em></p><p>Daddy sputters, searching for any number of excuses or loopholes because Daddy is a thief and a coward.</p><p>Daddy’s a white man who thinks a thick checkbook is the answer for any sin. But, some things can’t be bought and sold.</p><p>He can. That’s why he thinks it’s universal. Her father who sold himself--body and soul, for power a fraction of a god’s.</p><p>Faced with the real thing, she folds like a paper tiger.</p><p>Thea returns that which is not theirs, but not <em> His </em>because it’s the right thing to do.</p><p>Because she knows he could crush her father between a finger and thumb. And, he would. Dagon is a good man, but he is a just man, and it would be justified.</p><p>Thea returns the arc out of self-preservation. And, because it keeps certain doors open. After all, she made a sacrifice at his altar, <em> and she returned his treasure. </em></p><p>Thea thinks of all of these variables and waves farewell to the pacified God like a good neighbour.</p><p>She does all of this because she is exactly who her parents raised her to be.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> And America is now blood and tears instead of milk and honey </em>
</p><p>
  <em> The youngsters who were programmed to continue </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Fucking up woke up one night digging </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Paul Revere and Nat Turner as the good guys </em>
</p><p>
  <em> America stripped for bed and we had not all yet closed our eyes </em>
</p><p>
  <em> The signs of truth were tattooed across her often entered vagina </em>
</p><p>
  <em> We learned to our amazement untold tale of scandal </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Two long centuries buried in the musty vault </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Hosed down daily with a gagging perfume </em>
</p><p>
  <em> America was a bastard, the illegitimate daughter of the mother country </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Whose legs were then spread around the world </em>
</p><p>
  <em> And a rapist known as freedom, free-doom </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Democracy, liberty, and justice were revolutionary code names that preceded </em>
</p><p>
  <em> The bubbling bubbling bubbling bubbling bubbling </em>
</p><p>
  <em> In the mother country's crotch </em>
</p><p>
  <em> What does Webster say about soul? </em>
</p><p>
  <em> All I want is a good home and a wife </em>
</p><p>
  <em> And a children and some food to feed them every night </em>
</p><p>
  <em> After all is said and done build a new route to China if they'll have you </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Who will survive in America? </em>
</p><p>- Gil Scott-Heron</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Hey, did you know that Christina Braithwhite is a bad guy?</p><p>Furthermore, fuck Howard Philip Lovecraft for co-opting existing deities into his own mythos are turning them into ~horrible monsters. What a hack. </p><p>Anyway, the Arc of the Covenant was seen at the sacking of the temple of Dagon, so that's the reference there. I'm probably forgetting a bunch of stuff in the text I've written. I can answer questions in the comments if y'all have 'em.</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Honk honk. I hope you enjoyed What's New Pussycat blowjobs and whatever else. Please let me know what you thought of the fic or if you want to yell in a clown circle with me.</p><p>Be safe.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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